From the Series
Award-winning design duo BarberOsgerby unveiled four contemporary furniture pieces for renowned furniture company Vitra during Salone del Mobile 2014.
Internationally acclaimed designers Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby founded their eponymous studio in 1996. Since then, they have gained worldwide recognition for their creations that experiment with form and material.
The Mariposa Sofa radiates an inviting aura of spacious comfort while maintaining a subtly understated presence thanks to its balanced proportions. The sofa owes its comfort to the soft upholstery, which completely surrounds the sitter and prevents contact with any hard structural elements. The sofa is further modular in form and can be tilted in various sitting or reclining positions, which allows users to determine the position that is most comfortable for them.
BarberOsgerby’s Planophore, named after the first stable model aeroplane powered by rubber bands in 1871, is a dual-purpose room divider and bookshelf. Its open sides create a horizontal emphasis, while the solid shelves with rounded bottom edges are reminiscent of aircraft wings and appear to float on the vertical panels. The design duo’s fascination for the construction of airplanes and cars have inspired various projects as well as the choice of materials and production methods they use. The unit’s vertical aluminium panels can be rotated to serve as a functional shelf divider for various objects including books, magazines and décor objects. The rotation axes of the panels increase the unit’s stability, while furthermore introducing a playful aspect to the arrangement of panels, allowing a multitude of different configurations.
Bar stools are often designed as part of a family of chairs, but the Zeb Stool was created to fulfil the specific and sole purpose of a bar stool. All of the stool’s parts including the seat, swivel mount, footrest and base plate are precisely coordinated down to the smallest details. The bar stool has a height-adjustable swivel seat and the sleeve of the column and the seats are available in various colours. The name Zeb refers to the Zebedee, the twirling jack-in-the-box character from the BBC children’s TV series The Magic Roundabout.
The Wood Table is made from solid wood and its construction achieves maximum stability with a minimum of structural elements. Distinguished by its archetypal form and precisely balanced proportions, it appears at first glance as though it has always existed, and yet it is in fact remarkably unique. Its legs are made of solid wood and are connected to the table top by strong aluminium bridges that ensure the tables stability. The rounded edges on the bottom of the table top are not just a gesture of added comfort. Depending on the viewing angle, they give the table top an especially slender appearance, thus emphasising the elegance of the overall design. This feature is also found on the Wood Bench, making the two pieces an ideal combination for a variety of settings.
The above furniture pieces were all unveiled at Vitra’s showroom during the 2014 Salone del Mobile in Milan, Italy.
