St-Ely is a collaboration between industrial designer Eugenie Manseau and architect Hubert Pelletier. The seating has been launched by Lerival, an American design house that connects furniture design with architecture.

The design was inspired by the comfortable, angled back of old 1920s and 1930s couches and combined with the orthogonal rigidity of contemporary furniture.

Folding the ends of each module creates an angle between the back and sides, which the designers liken to ears.

"Most modular sofas are a continuous piece sliced up," Pelletier said to Dezeen. "We wanted to subtly stress the idea of the individual units and the act of combining these units together."

"The fold at each end is the dominant detail of the design and creates a repetitive motif when many units are assembled," he continued.

A key consideration for St-Ely was the impact of the piece on the surrounding space: "A large piece of furniture like a sofa can be used to articulate the architectural space, divide rooms and underline functional transitions in space."

"We think the back view is as important as the front or side view. By expressing the fold on the back side we created a formal detail that is coherent with the front view and that animates the back side," Pelletier added.

More modular seating we have featured on Dezeen includes triangular sofas that tesselate to create different forms within a space and a modular seating system that encourages interaction between people.

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for Lerival appeared first on Dezeen.

German designer Hannes Grebin has created a range of living room furniture based on 1970s German domestic decor.

The bizarre, angular forms are covered in patterns and detailing which Grebin claims were commonly found in German living rooms during the 1970's.

He describes the pieces as "living sculptures, which puts the traditional views about comfort and taste into question."

The collection includes a sofa, arm chair, sideboard, rug and pendant lamp.

Grebin completed the project in October while studying product design at the Bauhaus University in Weimar, Germany.

Here's some text from the designer:

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I was determined to make a complete redesign of the "German parlour/living room". I limited the furniture range to the 6 archetypes of the ordinary German living room, the couch, the arm chair, the carpet, the wall unit, the ceiling lamp and finally the traditional German tile table (just now in design phase).

Especially on my research on the topic gemutlichkeit/cosiness I found out that terms as taste or comfort are a matter of learning, which are changing at any time and can easily be adapted.

Therefore, in an experiment I tried to dissect the familiar image of Cosiness like in movies or television, this very illustrative Cozy of the German 70s, to creatively rearticulate it. I wanted to dissolve the otherwise clear symmetry of furniture and it's just visually coded function (A couch looks like a couch - is a couch ...) .

The respective original object shouldn't be reduced just to absurdity. I rather "zeroed" its geometry or sometimes I only rearranged it. A precise assignment of functions of the resulting un-or non-forms is now only possible through their texture (fabric) or applications (fringes, patterns, lace doilies), which are radiating neatness and a certain familiarity in spite of the predominant geometric dissonance. This creates the very disturbing effect of these. Despite its fractal and asymmetric geometry the furniture perfectly meet the demands of ergonomics. Thus I wanted to erupt from the everlasting symmetry of furniture.

Furthermore I can't actually understand why at the current state of the techniques hardly one designer is experimenting sculpturally. It seems as if the opportunities offered by a sculptural, process-oriented, generated and unique furniture design (guided by "Design on Demand", e.g. "Sinter Chair", O. Vogt, H. Weizenegger) today, if ever, are to be explored somewhere in scripting ( "Vendome", C. Weisshaar, R. Kram).

Quite differently, in my approach/production pipeline I've integrated a deliberately traditional modeling with clay as part of my design work and for a start I would like to place this project under the hybrid term of "digital craft" or "NEOCRAFT" .

And also in relation to a possible production of the pieces, especially in the current production discourse on craftsmanship, I can very well imagine a craft production.

Ultimately, it should be mentioned, that I didn't want to make just furniture. I't was much more important for me that although all objects work excellent as individual pieces, just in the specific arrangement of the "German living room, the design objects become objects for discussion, in order to lead the theoretical design discourse to new ways and approaches.

In my defense my supervising professor considered all of my designs as a "disciplined joke". That frankly falls a bit short for me

"Perser", oriental carpet
The carpet is an interpretation of the classical Persian rug. Just as all the other objects it is playing with the distressing effect reached by the contrast of broken geometry and square, retro texture, as it acts as a medium of coded experience values.

"Deckenleuchte", ceiling lamp,
Revised, cleaned up version of a ceiling lamp from an ordinary german living room

"Schrankwand-Sideboard", sideboard
To keep up with the times, and because today less is more, the wall unit as a florid storage system is overtaken and substituted by a sideboard. This piece of furniture is an arrangement of four different functional parts of a rustic wall unit for the purpose of German period furniture. To the formative tenor from deliberate, geometrical dissonance is also corresponded here.

"Spießer-Sofa", couch,
With its 4 meters in length, the couch is the heart of this cosy ensemble. Here the popular image of comfortable seating is alienated, and merely by its texture and applications (lace doilies, fringes) its function becomes conceivable.

"Ohrensessel", wing chair,
In spite of hard edges, a very pleasant seating. By composite construction and stuck upholstery fabric with flower pattern "Cosy Hard Edge" is entering the living room. Through my diploma I concerned myself with the subjects of cosiness, the typical German living room and bourgeois pieces of furniture. Applications like lace doilies and fringes both live of the comfortable character and encouraging the irritating image.

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Young Japanese designer Shizuka Tatsuno has designed an upholstered bench that can be converted into a chaise longue or an armchair and side table.

Designed for single-occupant living, Modular Bench can be reconfigured by moving upholstered elements that slot into holes in the base.

Tatsuno exhibited the bench at 100% Design Tokyo in November.

Here's some text from the designer:

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Shizuka Tatsuno is a product and furniture designer who moved to the UK in 2005 and graduated with the first class honor from the product and furniture course in Kingston University London in 2008. She exhibited in New Designers Exhibition, Tent London and 100% Design Tokyo Prototype in 2008 and is currently based in Tokyo.

Products revealing quality from using over time

Modular Bench is a modular seating unit for a live-alone. The bench can be changed to an arm chair with a small table, and a couch by sticking the arms and back in different holes and transforming the cushion.

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Young designer Christian Vivanco has designed a steel-framed sofa, which he calls Our Little White Sofa.

The sofa is designed for both indoor and outdoor use.

"The concept started with the search for an all-together furniture, but at the same time looking for a new expression for this kind of piece," says the Barcelona-based designer.

The following info is from Christian Vivanco:

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Our little white sofa

Just one single outline to create a sofa that follows the idea of a mixture between outdoor and indoor furniture, between function and form.

The concept started with the search for an all-together furniture, but at the same time looking for a new expression for this kind of piece. A steel wireframe structure that support a comfortable but slim couch.

About the designer:

Christian Vivanco is a young industrial designer graduated in 2006. From his beginnings into design has focused to the constant search by reinterpretation of the function, the way of use of objects and its interaction with people. He’s achieved to capture customs, sensations and experiences giving as result pleasing and simple products.

Simplicity is the key factor in all of Christian designs; always in search by the unification, not only of forms or surfaces, but of functions and uses, customs and necessities, always trying to create something simple, something beautiful.

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