Chairs are an interesting aspect of product design to unpack. As well as being one of the most mass-produced, stackable, and utilitarian pieces of furniture, they also reside at the other end of the spectrum. Pieces like the Eames chair or Pierre Paulin’s iconic sofas straddle the line between art and design. It’s this unimaginable range that has attracted designers to chairs since time immemorial.
Whether luxury leather iterations or plastic throwaways, we use them every day, but what does it take to build a great chair? LA-based Spencer Daly is the man with the answers. Since 2020, Daly has been building experimental furniture under his Apartment 1007 imprint, and he doesn’t hide any detail.
Far from hiding them, Daly’s work celebrates the rawness of seemingly unfinished design. The nuts and bolts are still visible, and uncovered foam cushioning is strapped in by industrial belts — Daly’s design language is all about appreciating the process of construction, and it’s never more successful than in his Lounge Chair designed exclusively for SSENSE.
Made from raw Douglas fir two-by-fours, the Apartment 1007 Lounge Chair is, on the one hand, strikingly minimal. But, on the other, beyond the untreated frame that’s punctuated by silver-tone BB hex-head bolts and covered in egg-crate foam is something that represents a lot more than the sum of its parts. It’s an ode to the beauty of building.
The rawness of Spencer Daly’s work definitely feels familiar. Throughout his collaborations and work at Off-White™, Virgil Abloh searched for the same kind of deconstructed end product which swapped polished finishes for something more real and faithful to the actual process of design. High-end furniture, like luxury fashion, has traditionally favoured clean finishes and elegance, so Daly’s Apartment 1007 feels as refreshing to furniture design as Abloh’s first Nike collaborations felt to sneakers.
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