New Design Talents: The Rising Chair by Robert Van Embricqs

Last year I went to the Dutch Design Week, the yearly Dutch Design Exhibition in Eindhoven.
I was thrilled to see so many nice and original ideas, most of which were designed by young artists.
One of the coolest object I saw was a chair that once folded become just a wooden board.
I thought it was genial!

Few days ago a friend of mine introduced me a young graduate of the Gerrit Rietvled Academie .
We talked about design, his projects and he told me he showed his final exam work at the Dutch Design Week last October…he was the designer of the amazing chair I saw there!
What a small world.

Of course…I could not avoid to ask him the permission to publish his work on Mid Century Home.
I know that the chair is not really Mid-Century style….but he studied at the Rietveld Academie -one of my favourite Mid-Century designer- and I immediately thought it was a kind of ‘sign’: I had to do it.

So, the chair is called Rising Chair and the designer is Robert Van Embricqs.
Robert has been so kind to send me a very interesting documentation aboout what inspired him and how he realized the chair.
Below he describes the creative process he followed.

“
Inspiration

What fascinated me during my research was a simple question: to what degree is the object you’re creating capable of dictating its own design? Is it even possible for an object to ‘tell’ for which form its best suited? And if so, what will the end result be?

Creation and construction

The foundation of any chair is the flat surface you’ll eventually sit down on. Using this notion as a starting point, I made several cuts in the flat surface and pulled up the different beam-like strands of cut surface. This created the preliminary but already distinct features of any chair: back, seat and legs. The rhythm of the wooden beams gives the chair an organic shape. As a creator, I felt a special connection to the material I was working with.
Molding the chair into its definitive form, it felt like a special, hard to define partnership between myself and the material.

A seat like a colourful flowerpetal

The seating area of the chair can be called to attention by applying different colours. In its flat state, using a variety of colours can help define the areas on the
beam that create the seat. It’s also possible to underline the contrast between the sides of the chair and the top. This can be done by picking different colours for them.”

Robert is looking for a company to manufacture his work, if you know anyone that could be interested feel free to drop me an email.

So, what do you think about the Rising Chair? The guy is promising, isn’t it? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

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Thanks for reading.

Ciao.