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Design October 26, 2011

Herman Miller and Mattiazzi:
Industrial Facility

By

“In the natural world, complexity thrives with reason,” says Sam Hecht of Industrial Facility. “Beauty is simply a result of constant growth.”

When designing the Branca chair for Mattiazzi, Hecht and his partner Kim Colin turned to nature. “In particular, the branches of a tree provided the critical analogy for the project.” Like a tree, the chair has elements that turn, twist, meet, and branch. “The different points may seem random but are all intentional.”

Carved from a single piece of wood, Branca pushes the notion of robotic craftsman. Using a combination of sophisticated CNC machining and traditional hand-shaping and finishing techniques, the simple design belies the complexity of its production.

The result is a chair that is comfortable to the eye and the body, light enough to carry and easy to stack.

Comments (1)

That does look like a comfortable design – assuming the back slat hits at just the right point at the base of your shoulder blades. I checked the product page and it appears that the seat and back are carved from the same piece of wood rather than the whole chair being a single piece. That makes more sense than how I originally read the description; I was wondering how they could build a chair strong enough to hold a person if the various vertical and horizontal pieces weren’t separate components!

Daisy
http://www.sandiegocubicles.com/blog

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