Quirky rocking chair’s jagged design creates an illusion of a ‘motion blur’

Posted on 29/04/2024 by Sarang Sheth

Bordering on visually uncomfortable, this rocking chair from Instagram user Muddycap has us captivated for all the right reasons! The chair has a highly unusual design, with severely jagged edges that simulate the feeling of movement. Building on the concept of visual permanence and the motion blur, this chair creates the illusion of being in constant motion, even when it’s standing still.

Designer: Muddycap

The Fast Rocking Chair, as it’s aptly called, comes crafted from Maple wood and secured with a coat of paint to hide the wood-grain which would give the illusion away. Each chair features different pieces of wood, cut using a mechanical saw to match the unique shapes, and joined together using traditional joineries. The result is a chair that looks cartoonishly fast, prompting you to spend more time looking at it. Sure, you could sit on it too – it might look jagged but it isn’t uncomfortable.

The jagged design exists only on the side profiles, so there’s really no danger of you hurting yourself while sitting on the rocking chair. The seat and armrest are flat, and the backrest has a mild corrugated design. That being said, the chair is definitely a health hazard for kids and pets who may often run around the house. While most furniture have a few sharp edges, the Fast Rocking Chair is essentially an invitation to the ER for children or pets with zoomies, or adults with ADHD.

However, the rocking chair makes for a really fun visual experiment. Muddycap’s entire Instagram profile is filled with such explorations, aiming at turning furniture into conversation pieces rather than have them stuck in the realm of hardcore functionality. The rocking chairs obviously aren’t for sale, although there’s no denying that they certainly do look rather mesmerizing.

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Made From Cork, This Rocking Chair Is A Sustainable And Minimal Furniture Piece For Your Home

Posted on 02/10/2023 by Srishti Mitra

2020 was a life-altering and drastic year, and 2023 has been the year we get to redeem all our careless mistakes of the past and start living more consciously and sustainably. We cannot ignore the needs of our planet anymore, we need to take the environment into consideration, and what better way to start doing that than from our own homes? Sustainable furniture is taking the design industry by storm, they’re a step towards making our homes and our daily lives more eco-friendly and sustainable. They’re an attempt to cast aside toxic materials, and instead, add furniture designs to our home that won’t rot away on Earth for years once we’re done with them. And, one such furniture design is the Gago rocking chair by Dam.

Designer: Dam

Portuguese design brand Dam just unveiled a cork-clad rocking chair to celebrate 10 years of its existence. The unique-looking chair is inspired by seaplanes! When you look at the Gago rocking chair, it instantly brings to mind the rounded shape of an aviator’s helmet, which is an ode to the first successful crossing of the South Atlantic Ocean by a Portuguese pilot in 1922. On the back of every chair is a label that says “1922, 8383km”. The number represents the milestone journey between Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro.

What makes the chair sustainable is that the exterior shell is built from natural cork. The material was selected for its sustainability, softness, and antibacterial properties. The interior of the seat is upholstered in Burel fabric. Burel is made from wool. “Both fabrics are 100 percent Portuguese materials, 100 percent natural, environmentally friendly, and durable,” said Dam.

Other features of the chair include the base which holds two rockers that can be built in ash, oak, or walnut, and finished with a clear varnish. The Burel fabric is available in five color options such as – Serene Beige, Sleepy Green, Deep Blue, Fond Orange, and Luxury Red. The various material and color options make the Gago rocking pretty customizable, so you can personalize it according to your personal taste and preference, allowing you to create a chair design that perfectly complements your living taste and your personality.

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This Hammock Rocking-Chair hybrid is perfect for lounging by the poolside, porch, or even your high-rise balcony

Posted on 12/04/2023 by Sarang Sheth

Inspired by tropical elements like the shape of a surfboard, the curvature of a banana, and the overall tranquil nature of a hammock, the Panama Banana is the perfect piece of furniture for outdoor lounging. It’s as comfortable as a hammock or sun chair, but rocks to and fro like a rocking chair, giving you an experience that’s sure to steal your entire afternoon and some more.

Designer: Agota Rimsaite

The Panama Banana is characterized by two arched birchwood strips joint at the ends, with polyester straps connecting the area in between to create a curved section that you can sleep or sit on. At about 6.8 feet long and 4.2 feet wide, the Panama Banana is spacious enough for one person along with some personal objects like a book, iPad, phone, or towel. Coated with a water-resistant wax, the rocking furniture is perfect for outdoor use, or even indoor use with an outdoor view. Given its tropical influences, it’s best near a pool or on a porch or balcony facing the beach.

Weighing just 11 kilograms (24.2 lbs), it’s lightweight enough to be moved around so you can gather two loungers together and chill with a buddy or your partner. Wooden channels that run horizontally between the two arches can be unplugged, allowing the Panama Banana to fold flat for easier moving and carrying. To reassemble it, just install the horizontal channels and your Panama Banana is ready to be lounged on! The Panama Banana is long enough to stretch yourself comfortably, even encouraging you to take a nap should you choose. Remember to wear sunscreen, though.

“[The Panama Banana] is made by local materials from Baltic region,” says designer Agota Rimsaite. “The wood work of this design mainly involves craftsmanship, done with deep care for details and main focus for sustainable processes.”

The Panama Banana is a past winner of the A’ Design Award.

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This rocking chair design concept is an odd ode to couch potatoes

Posted on 08/12/2022 by JC Torres

“Form follows function” is one of the most famous principles of good design, one that is deceptively simple as the three words would seem to suggest. After all, it sounds logical enough for an object’s shape to be based on what it’s meant to do or that its design should at least not get in the way of its operation. It might not always work that way, though, especially when the form dictated by function would turn out to be something drab or even downright repulsive. Sometimes, however, it does result in quite a few interesting concepts, especially when designers take things almost too literally. This rocking chair, for example, has quite the appealing curves that might make you chuckle in amusement when you find out that it is inspired by a couch potato’s stereotypical favorite snack.

Designer: Pranay Patidar

Rocking chairs are famous for their soothing back-and-forth motion that often reminds us of our infancy. The core design for this chair is pretty simple, only requiring that it incorporate a way to use simple physics to rock the person back and forth. Typical designs attach curved bars or structures to the legs of the chair, but it isn’t really the only way to make a chair rock.

In essence, a rocking chair revolves around curved shapes to make that motion possible, and the Chipp concept design takes inspiration from a shape that is all too familiar to people who love to lounge around on chairs and couches. Potato chips, particularly of the Pringles variety, come in a rather distinctive curved form, and using it as the basis of a rocking chair is both poetic and comical. More importantly, however, it actually works, at least as far as the concept goes.

Chipp is actually composed of three potato chip-shaped parts in different sizes. The biggest forms the backbone of the rocking chair and is responsible for creating that rocking motion. Curiously enough, the actual seat isn’t built into this part of the chair but is yet another “chip” that curves in the opposite direction and is attached to the base with a single pillar. The third and smallest chip is on the back to prevent the chair from completely rolling backward.

It might be a bit questionable whether this potato chip rocking chair is structurally sound and safe, but it is definitely an interesting interpretation of an old furniture design. The chair could be made from different materials, including both wood and plastic, though it will probably score bonus points if it looks exactly like that snack, just to go along with your Loafa bread sofa.

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Rocking chair with a built-in swing may just be the most playful seating experience I’ve seen

Posted on 07/12/2022 by Sarang Sheth

The only thing it really needs is an ice cream dispenser to fulfill every single childhood fantasy of mine…

Meet the Swing Seat, a chair with a kinesthetic experience that gives you the feeling of sitting on a swing on the playground. The chair sports both a swinging seat and a rocking base, which combine together to create a unique experience that’s quite unlike sitting on a regular rocking chair. “The resulting dual action of this mechanism creates a back-and-forth gliding sensation, like a swing in motion”, says designer Joe Parr.

Designer: Joe Parr

The Swing Seat challenges the instinctive reaction to lounge or relax on a reclining chair when fatigued. It’s something adults do frequently, but it isn’t what instinctively comes to children. Instead of retiring to a sofa or recliner, children are more driven to the idea of ‘recess’, or of playing and stimulating themselves to reduce fatigue and stress. The Swing Seat brings that interaction back to adults, giving them the ability to rejuvenate their senses while staying seated and alert. “When I discovered how motion added excitement the experience for the sitter, I began to understand the power of the mind and body connection”, Parr mentioned.

The Swing Seat comprises a bent metal-pipe frame with a rocking base, and a leather hammock-style seat attached to the sides of the frame, giving you a chair that simultaneously swings as well as rocks to and fro. Combine the two and they sort of add up to create a sense of thrill without the space requirements of a playground swing!

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Award-winning rocking chair uses a tensile fabric and metal framework to achieve uniqueness

Posted on 11/10/2022 by Sarang Sheth

Close your eyes and imagine a rocking chair. You probably thought of the archetypal chair, right? The kind granddads sit on – made from wood, with armrests, a long back, and probably a creaking sound when rocked. Chances are that what you imagined was NOTHING like the ZHE rocking chair. Designed to bring a sense of disruption to how comfortably boring rocking chairs have begun looking, ZHE does things differently. Instead of wood, it uses a metal structure with a stretchable fabric draped on it. The fabric, which contorts and bends due to tension (or tensile strength), ends up forming the unique contoured shape of the ZHE chair. Sit on it and it feels like sitting on the future – there’s no wood under your body, just fabric, metal, and a sense of weightlessness as you rock to and fro!

Designer: Alan Hung

ZHE’s lightweight appeal comes from the fact that it’s designed around the core idea of ‘nothingness’. It’s essentially just a bent metal-tube frame with fabric draped over it, but it’s the way the fabric drapes over that gives ZHE all its character. The fabric wraps almost entirely around the metal armature, except for a small arc at the bottom which pulls the seat down and gives it concavity. It doesn’t particularly look like the fabric can be removed, washed, or interchanged, but then again those seem almost like secondary details.

The ZHE isn’t like your average rocking chair, as I’ve alluded to… but it behaves just like a traditional one. Sink into the comfort of its fabric seat and rock back and forth like you normally would. The curved metal channels on the base allow the chair to rock back and forth, while the chair’s fabric gives you the feeling of being in a hammock of sorts!

The ZHE Rocking Chair is a winner of the Red Dot Design Concept Award for the year 2022.

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Canoa is a boat-shaped lounge chair that rocks you to the soothing waves of the sea

Posted on 21/07/2022 by JC Torres

There are things and elements in nature that immediately make us comfortable and at ease, even just by thinking about them. A blowing breeze, the gentle pitter-patter of rain, and the rocking motion of waves are just some of the most popular examples that are easily replicated inside houses these days. Controlled fans can make you feel like a breeze is flowing through your room, while meditation music often includes sounds of rain or rivers. Recreating waves might be a bit harder, but a properly designed rocking chair could actually fit the bill. This lounge chair does, in fact, try to deliver that soothing experience, but its ties to the sea go beyond its rocking motion.

Designer: Guilherme Wentz

From the front, the chair looks pretty normal, albeit a little low and short. Walk around it just a bit, however, reveals its true form, one that is quite unique even among rocking chairs. The chair’s name clearly spells out its form and function. Canoa is Portuguese for “canoe,” and its resemblance to the water vessel is clear, even if it requires stretching the imagination a bit. The curved bottom of the chair resembles the hull of a boat, and its elongated body further reinforces that imagery. While most lounge chairs use warm tones and hues to convey feelings of comfort, Canoa employs a darker shade of blue with specks of white to represent its maritime inspiration.

The shape of the chair isn’t just for the sake of appearances, though. Low and close to the ground, the Canoa gives the feeling of almost lying down on a floater, gently swayed by rhythmic waves of the sea. Its height also gives it a bit of firmness and stability even as it rocks to and fro. It helps keep a person’s feet close to the ground as well, allowing them to come and go with ease. It would probably be easy to fall asleep on the chair with its rocking motions, which is the entire point of the design anyway.

Almost like a modern boat as well, the chair uses a mixture of aluminum and wood to form its skeleton. Foam and elastic straps provide comfortable support for your body, while aluminum and felt finishing on the bottom protect the fabric on the bottom from friction against the floor. That fabric, however, is no simple covering and gives something back to the sea that inspired this striking piece of furniture.

Beyond form and function, the Canoa also has a soul that calls out to the sea. Although made from steel and wool on the inside, the upholstery on the outside is made from WENTZ’s WE-KNIT mesh fabric. This particular material is made from 100% recycled PET bottles, particularly PET bottles that pollute our oceans. Every Canoa, then, isn’t just a beautiful and functional rocking chair but also a statement in support of sustainable practices and environmental awareness. In that sense, the lounge chair is truly born from the sea and does its fair share of saving it.

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Instant Rocking Chair!

Posted on 30/05/2017 by Sarang Sheth

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The Outdoor Bascule rocks. No, I mean it physically rocks! Designed cleverly to turn any flat surface into an immediate rocking chair, the Outdoor Bascule relies on a curved seat to give the chair its rocking action. It turns areas that aren’t conducive to sitting into perfect sitting spots with the added advantage of being able to rock back and forth. Now who doesn’t love that?

Unlike most rocking chairs (or even regular chairs), the Outdoor Bascule is portable and easily transportable. The two armrests are easy to flat-pack and carry, while the chair element itself is stackable, making logistics rather easy. Once you’re at the park, or on your balcony, just fix the armrests to the chair and you have yourself a chair with a backrest that rocks gently without tipping over, just making that evening a delight.

The Bascule (french for see-saw) was built with new parents in mind. Allowing them to rock back and forth with their children, the Outdoor Bascule becomes an interactive element in the playing-time between parents and their infants. However, the Bascule is ideal for all sorts of uses. Wouldn’t you be tempted to carry that to the nearest park and rock gently back and forth while flipping through a book, or crack open a bottle of chardonnay and rock away, being kissed by the sun, listening to soft jazz?

Designer: Rhea Mehta

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Minimal toy, maximum joy!

Posted on 27/03/2017 by Sarang Sheth

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At a certain age, a child doesn’t need a toy that’s elaborately designed. Even the simplest things give them joy, which is what makes the Chou Du Volant such a delight for toddlers. Designed with a small footprint, and made primarily out of wood, the toy can be modified and customized to go from a rocking airplane, to leg-operated car, to a push-car.

A customizable design means endless hours of fun for the child as they watch their toy transform from a mouse, to a hot-rod car, to an airplane. The wooden ply construction makes it incredibly easy for production too, with cost-effective processes like cutting, forming, and post-processing being the only techniques used in the production of the toy.

Designer: Jean Marc Gomez

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