Tag Archives: cat tree

Gustaf Westman Gives Cat Furniture a Playful Upgrade

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Cat trees are rarely the most beautiful objects in a home. They are often tall, scratchy, beige, awkwardly shaped, and treated as something to be tolerated rather than celebrated. Swedish designer Gustaf Westman seems to have taken that as a challenge. With his new Chunky Cat Tree, he reimagines the everyday pet accessory as a sculptural, design-forward piece of furniture that belongs as much to the living room as it does to the cat.

Known for his soft, rounded, almost cartoon-like forms, Westman has built a recognizable visual language around bold proportions and playful silhouettes. His Chunky collection already includes cups, glasses, vases, a stool, a flower pot, and even a coffee maker. Now, with the Chunky Cat Tree, that same design universe has expanded into the world of pet furniture.

Designer: Gustaf Westman

The piece is informed by Westman’s Blob Sofa, which launched in 2023. Like the sofa, the cat tree uses stacked, rounded volumes and a confident colour palette to create something that feels friendly, soft, and slightly surreal. Instead of hiding pet furniture in a corner, Westman’s version asks to be seen. It functions as a perch for cats, but also as a statement object for humans.

The design features a tripod base, with three rounded legs supporting platforms placed at different heights. These levels allow cats to climb, rest, observe, and occupy the structure from multiple angles. The three rounded feet can also serve as resting spots, making the piece usable by more than one cat at a time. It is practical, but it does not look purely practical. That is where the charm lies.

Westman’s approach feels especially relevant in a moment when homes are becoming more carefully curated, but also more emotionally expressive. People no longer want furniture that only performs a function; they want objects that reflect personality, taste, humour, and lifestyle. The Chunky Cat Tree fits into this shift beautifully. It treats cats not as an afterthought in the domestic space, but as active participants in it.

The designer has said that after seeing so many ugly cat trees, he felt it would be fun to design something within that category. His comment reveals the larger idea behind the project: everything can be designed better, even the things we usually accept as visually unpleasant. By giving equal attention to form and function, Westman creates a product that serves both cats and their owners.

Made to order in Sweden, the Chunky Cat Tree can be upholstered in wool in red, yellow, purple, blue, or cobalt blue. These colour options continue Westman’s love for punchy primary and secondary shades, while the wool finish gives the object a softer, more furniture-like presence.

Since founding his studio in 2020, Westman has become known for custom furniture, ceramics, glassware, and playful made-to-order objects. His work often uses materials such as wood, metal, ceramic, and glass, but visually ties them together through rounded shapes, glossy finishes, and a childlike sense of wonder.

The Chunky Cat Tree is more than a luxury accessory for pets. It is a reminder that design can enter unexpected categories and make them feel fresh. By turning a typically clunky household object into a sculptural centrepiece, Gustaf Westman proves that even a cat tree can have personality, humour, and a place in contemporary design.

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Cat tree concept proposes a multifunctional and risky design

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Living space is becoming more expensive and cramped as time goes by, and that’s especially true when you’re sharing your home with furry friends. Space for human furniture will sometimes have to give way for those designed specifically for pets unless you can find a way to combine those two in a way that creates harmony rather than turf wars. Some pet furniture, however, doesn’t seem to be conducive to that design by nature, like a cat tree whose entire purpose is to give felines a place to play, scratch, or sleep in. That’s exactly the unbelievable idea behind this unusual furniture concept that blends a cat tree and a shelf for humans in a rather visually unique way.

Designer: Ricardo Sá

Thanks to their innate agility, cats are notorious for climbing places. They’re also pretty bad at scratching surfaces (just like dogs are infamous for chewing shoes), so cat furniture is often designed to address these needs while enticing cats away from human furniture. Unlike a simple bed or house for a cat, however, a cat tree not only takes up space on the floor but also quite a bit of height from the room as well.

Inspired by the Japanese art of “tameshigiri” or test-cutting swords through rolls of straw or bamboo, Slash is a cat tree design concept that tries to make room for the needs of both cats and their owners. More specifically, it’s a shelf with inclined surfaces, definitely unusual for a shelf, that makes different areas more suited for different functions. The inclined part closest to the floor, for example, would be a good scratching pad for your cat, while the shelves that stop in the middle pillar would be ideal for books.

There is a flat shelf in the middle, and one of these has a ball hanging down for a cat to play with. The middle pillar of the cat tree has cushions at the top and bottom for the cat to sleep or perch on. The middle space can be for almost anything, especially stuff that you don’t want to accidentally fall off.

Slash has an intriguing and unconventional design that will pique the curiosity of cats and humans alike. That said, it’s rather questionable where putting human objects, especially fragile objects like a potted plant, where a cat plays is actually a good idea. You might know which shelves are for you and which are for the cat, but your feline family might have other ideas and claim everything for themselves, as cats often do.

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Tasteful & Functional Cat Tree Is Designed As An Excellent Alternative To Cheaply Made Cat Furniture

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For most of us, our pets aren’t simply pets! They’re our children and babies we consider our blood. We take care of them the way we would take care of our kids, and leave no stone unturned to ensure they are happy, healthy, and safe. If you’re looking for a new and improved way to take better care of your pet then you may want to look into Papuk’s CONNECT Collection by Vazken Karageozian.

Designer:Vazken Karageozian for PAPUK

Designed by Toronto-based interior designer Vazken Karageozian, the CONNECT Tree is an elegant and functional cat tree that is the ultimate haven for the kitties. Karageozian has two adorable felines himself – Grayson and Ella, and he decided to use his design talent to create something exceptional for his two favorite clients. As a result, Papuk which is Armenian for “soft and fluffy” was created.

The CONNECT Collection by Papuk offers a modular approach to the construction and design of a cat tree. It designs a cat tree as a multi-level system that can be personalized and customized with a bunch of attachable accessories, in turn creating a comfortable, cozy, and fun recreational activity for your cats, providing them with something else to do besides scratching and climbing your couch. The CONNECT Tree serves as the foundational element of the CONNECT system. It is the centerpiece of the multi-accessory system and is supported by other elements such as a scratching pad, cushion, tray platform, and hanging toy – which are available as a bundle or à la carte.

One of the designer’s motivations for creating the CONNECT Collection was the fact that most cheaply made cat furniture is disposed of in landfills owing to their poor and questionable construction and designs. The CONNECT Tree, on the other hand, features solid-ash dowels, ash-veneered plywood shelves, and accessories that can be added using genuine leather straps. The CONNECT Tree is designed by Vazken Karageozian as a solution that offers “inter-species happiness”, which is often found lacking in the pet product category.

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