Dezeen Showroom: designer Sabine Marcelis has teamed up with Swedish brand Hem to create the donut-shaped Boa Pouf, which is upholstered without any seams.
The Boa Pouf is shortlisted for Dezeen Awards 2022 in the seating design category.
The design consists of a foam-filled seat upholstered in melange wool, created using an innovative shape-knitting technique that produces no visible seams or ridges.
This was a condition specified by Rotterdam-based Marcelis when she first started working with Hem on the product.
"Pleats and seams tend to ruin soft-shaped furniture," she told Dezeen. "I said I would only launch this if we could make it seamless."
This process ended up taking two years of development and a dozen prototypes.
"The Boa Pouf looks deceptively simple. However, the development of the seamless, shape-knit fabric was one of the most difficult processes we've ever had to tackle at Hem," said brand founder Petrus Palmér.
"What we achieved with Sabine would have been impossible to create using traditional means and the final product has no precedent."
The Boa Pouf has a concealed wooden core, with makes it sturdy enough for multiple people to sit on.
It has a diameter of 1.15 metres and comes in three colours: Oatmeal, Cotton Candy and Sulfur Yellow.
The product marks the designer's first foray into upholstered textiles. She is best known for her work in resin and glass, such as her Aura lights for Established & Sons or her Hue mirrors.
The design is based on a foam seat that Marcelis previously created for a shop interior and continues her ongoing "fascination and love" of the donut shape.
"It is such a perfectly complete and finite shape that is straightforward but not boring," she said.
Product: Boa
Designer: Sabine Marcelis
Brand: Hem
Contact: info@hem.com
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