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If asked to identify a chair by name, most professional workers could probably come up with the Aeron Chair, which has become an icon to modern office dwellers. Even casual design fans could surely name a few classic lounge chairs—the Barcelona chair or an Eames model or two. But when it comes to furniture that lives outside, you'd be hard pressed to find a canonical example. Los Angeles-based designer Jonathan Olivares is attempting to give patio furniture its moment in the sun with a new creation that is ergonomic, easy on the eyes, and durable enough for a date with the pressure washer.
The Olivares Aluminum Chair for Knoll brings technical and aesthetic sophistication to outdoor furniture—a realm historically dominated by wicker, wrought iron, and woefully tacky plastic. It weighs just under 15 pounds, thanks to a thin-walled, single-piece aluminum construction. The chair's shell measures just three millimeters thick at points and the skinny structure allows it to react quickly to the sitter's body temperature, making longer sitting sessions more comfortable. To enhance durability, the chairs are finished with a scratch resistant powder coat and are available in a range of bright colors inspired by artist David Hockney's paintings.
>The skinny structure allows it to react quickly to the sitter's body temperature.
Outdoor furniture has been ignored, in part, because the core of the furniture industry is based in cold weather climates like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New York. Olivares, who is based in sunny southern California, has a different perspective and saw an opportunity his cold-weather colleagues missed. "We noticed that a section of culture increasingly places a premium on being outdoors, both because it is a luxury and has positive health connotations," he says and notes that the trend isn't confined to leisure time. "With the ability to compute anywhere, I think we will soon see companies integrate the outdoors into their workplace environments."
If offices are to move outdoors, they'll need better seating. Plastic chairs are comfortable, but they degrade in direct sunlight. Metal chairs are sturdy as the day is long, but uncomfortable for eight hour shifts. "We picked up on the tradition of organic design in plastic," says Olivares. "And explored it further with the latest metal technologies."
The concept came quickly, but the chair was four years in the making and involved a hands-on prototyping process with dozens of models made from paper, plaster, wood, fiberglass, and 3-D printed parts. Models were put through a rigorous battery of tests that included digital simulations and physical modeling. Finite element analysis helped Olivares find the perfect balance between strength and weight, CNC milled prototypes allowed his team to optimize the seat for comfort, but perfecting the aesthetics was a challenge until a rush of caffeine-fueled creativity helped reveal a solution. "Cafés are the most unforgiving places for a chair's looks because you can see the chair from every angle and perspective at once," says Olivares. Naturally, to make sure the chair looked perfect, he developed a large gyroscopic tripod that allowed the team to photograph prototypes from every angle and assemble the pics in a grid format to simulate the café experience and simultaneously view the designs from all angles.
The Olivares Aluminum Chair is available from Knoll for $575.
