Seat-uational Awareness
By Bruno Povejsil, studiobstyle guest blogger
A daily challenge for interior designers is making the most beautiful room possible without sacrificing functionality. A kitchen needs to withstand smoke and spills, and bathrooms will get wet, so the materials and props you use in these spaces need to be easy to clean and stain-resistant, while still supporting your creative vision(it’s no coincidence tile is great for these spaces). By the same token, a room that will host a lot of traffic, such as the dining room or living room, needs seating that will welcome company and look amazing. Studiobstyle has gathered an assortment of chairs that meet Barbara Schmidt’s high standards for both comfort and style.
These black plastic “Casper” chairs from Modway are modeled and named after Philllipe Starck’s trendy “ghost” chairs of the early aughts, called such because of the clear polycarbonate used to make them. Now available in their original translucent form and other assorted colors, they are incredibly flexible furniture pieces with both indoor and outdoor applications.
Plastic chairs are typically relegated to the realm of outdoor furniture, but the Casper’s elegant lines and vibrant colors, combined with its relative affordability, gives it a leg up on both its patio-bound predecessors and traditional wooden seating. They’re great for shaking up a dining room in need of an offbeat, modern touch. Buy them from studiobstylehome here.
Instead of a modern touch, however, you might consider looking to the past. These Kodawood “Oyster” chairs followed in the footsteps of the Danish Kofod Larsen chairs(aka “penguin chairs”) that took the interior design world by storm in the 1950’s. The characteristic clamshell appearance and colorful vinyl coverings helped Kodawood build a reputation as manufacturers of stylish, modern furniture, which has aged into stylish, vintage furniture. It’s a classic success story, and the Oyster chair is now a classic, timeless design that adds some 60’s flair to a dining room. Buy them from studiobstylehome here.
The Blu Dot Field lounge chair is built for comfort first and foremost, but it also has a modern, rounded profile and neutral color that makes it work as either a centerpiece or accent in your designs. It has a particular scoop shape to it that really puts the “lounge” in “lounge chair,” along with cushions specifically made to support your back. I often find myself guilty of choosing comfort over style, and this is a seat that answers that dilemma.
Another Blu Dot entry is the Host dining chair: in some senses a smaller version of the Field chair’s scoop shape, but built higher and with a straighter back to suit a dining table, or a lobby as shown above. These chairs are transitional in nature; they don’t lean into the characteristics of any specific era of design history, and so they can complement nearly anything they’re put together with. An old, oaken desk or a steel-and-glass coffee table are pieces that set a strong tone in a room, and you could make these chairs work as accents to either one. The simple, round-edged geometry highlights intricate antiques or contrasts the sharp edges of modern, minimalist furniture. Buy them from studiobstylehome here.
Understanding the intersections of form and function is the first and most significant challenge when building and designing a space. Not every object in your composition needs to serve both an aesthetic and practical purpose, but seating will always be an area where you want to ensure the best of both worlds. Fortunately, we’ve gone over some options that are flexible enough that they can fit to whatever you can imagine, though digging a little deeper is likely to reward you with a perfect piece.