Extra Moooi: in our next exclusive movie for Moooi, Swedish designer Jonas Forsman explains how he used 3D-knitting techniques to make his foldable Shift Chair for the Dutch brand as comfortable as possible.

Forsman's foldable Shift Chair, which is available as a dining chair and a wider, lower lounge chair, features a padded seat and a tensile fabric backrest.

Forsman wanted to create an attractive, comfortable folding chair because the spaces people are living in are getting smaller and more crowded.

Research commissioned by Ikea in 2014 found that one in five urban dwellers were living in an area smaller than 30 square metres, and an increasing number of designers are creating space-saving furniture in response to this change.

"We do not have as much space as we had before," says Forsman in the movie, which was filmed in Milan last year during the furniture fair, where Shift Chair was unveiled.

"One day you want to use your space in one way and the next day you want to use it in another way."

Shift Chair is available in a range of different colours and features a powder-coated steel frame with a foam seat and a knitted polyester cover that stretches out to create a soft yet supportive backrest.

"We can fold it for storage, but it still has a great comfort and a nice look," Forsman says.

The knitted backrest is created using a similar technique that sportswear brand Nike uses for its Flyknit range of sports shoes.

"We have used a three-dimensional knitting technique," Forsman explains.

"It's not a fabric you cut and sew, it's actually knitted in this shape from the start. Nike uses it for making shoes nowadays, but the chair is knitted with a heavier yarn that is suitable for furniture."

Forsman developed a simple prototype of the chair himself, which Moooi decided to develop and manufacture after he sent the Dutch brand photographs of it.

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"The collaboration started when I sent photos of the prototype that Moooi really liked," Forsman recalls. "It ended up as two different products. A smaller one, which is a dinning chair, and a larger one, the lounge chair."

This movie was filmed at Moooi's Milan show in 2015. The music featured is a track called Aglow by US artist RyIm.

The movie is part of our year-long Extra Moooi collaboration, which sees us working with Moooi in Milan, New York, London and Amsterdam to get under the skin of the brand, its products and designers. Read all the stories at dezeen.com/moooi.

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