Milan 2015: Vienna-based designer Thomas Feichtner has created a chair by laying sheets of woven carbon fibre over a mould and coating them with epoxy resin. 

Carbon-fibre fabric was draped to form the three concave legs, sloping triangular seat and two-sided backrest of Feichtner's sculptural black Carbon Chair, which is available as a limited edition of just eight pieces.

"This sheet of carbon fibre is almost like a two-dimensional object," Feichtner told Dezeen. "It is more about playing with the surface."

"I wanted to find different angles, proportions and lengths without repetition or symmetry. I wanted to create a chair that was only possible in this material," he said.

To create the sheets of fabric, strands of carbon fibre are woven in two directions into a flexible cloth-like material.

When coated with the resin and placed over a mould, the sheets hardens to form a solid, lightweight structure, with a seat shaped to help the sitter slide into the back corner.

"I was absolutely fascinated by the lightness of it," said Feichtner, who was working with these materials for the first time. "We made a negative mould and laminated it by hand very carefully."

"After a day, we 'de-moulded' the piece," he continued. "It made a loud sound, a crack, and it ejected out in a second. We lifted it and were really surprised how light it actually is."

The Carbon Chair will be presented for the first time as part of the exhibition Austrian Design Pioneers exhibition in the Brera Design District of Milan next week.

Carbon fibre is becoming an increasingly popular material for furniture designers. Last year Marcel Wanders moulded the material around party balloons to create a lightweight chair, while Il Hoon Roh created a seat by intertwining carbon fibre strings into a branch-like pattern.