Lounge chair for HENRYTIMI

I believe this was a great collaboration to re-think and to study a simple approach to design a lounge chair.
Simplicity is the optimum goal for sophistication and it is not about a minimalistic styling in my opinion. The most important thing for me was to know what to remove and what to retain. It involves a lot of understanding and curious thinking.

Knowing the vision of HENRYTIMI, I had a tacit understanding of what the final execution was expected to be: something that is iconic and bold which was not the set goal for my work but I consider it as to fulfilling the request of the brand, it is a reasonable request. My attempt to meet this request was to clean up the chair to its absolute basic and to find a way to create a simple chair with arms. As a result we only have 3 elements that are left and right armrests and the seat in the middle that fit together. I felt this was a clear direction to take. Once the concept was decided, I just had to find an appropriate form and a proportion that reflects the concept. Final design was executed in solid wood which is always an honest and a pleasant material to work with.

I also designed a side table to go with the chair. Two chairs are now sandwiching a side table in a same manner as how the armrests sandwich the seat in between. I think this system works in lounge spaces where people may want to create modular and flexible solutions. It kind of reminds me of executive vehicles where we no longer have a bench seat at the back for 3 people but instead we have 2 allocated seats for the passengers. Having privacy is always a luxury and I felt it was appropriate approach for such public seat arrangement for a brand like HENRYTIMI.

Keiji Takeuchi