01 · Furniture · Prototype · 2007
BES Chair
A task chair whose plywood shell is its face, with recycled leather cushioning held inside it and a synchro mechanism doing the work underneath.
- Discipline
- Furniture
- Status
- Prototype
- Year
- 2007
- Materials
Moulded plywood shellConfirmed
Recycled leather upholsteryConfirmed
Donati synchro mechanismConfirmed
Tubular metal armsConfirmed
Five-star base on castorsConfirmed
The idea
The back of a chair is what a room sees.
Most task chairs are designed from the front and finished from behind. Here the moulded plywood shell is the outer face of the chair: seen from the back it is a single warm wooden surface, uninterrupted, with no hardware on show.
The upholstery sits inside that shell as separate padded sections rather than one thick pad. Splitting it keeps the volume light, lets the shell edge stay visible around the cushioning, and gives the seat and back their own softness where the body actually rests.
How it is made
- Shell
- Moulded plywood forming both the back and the underside of the seat, finished as a visible surface.
- Cushioning
- Segmented pads in recycled leather, set into the shell rather than wrapped over it.
- Arms
- Tubular metal arms rising from the seat frame in one continuous bend.
- Mechanism
- A Donati synchro unit, specified off the shelf: seat and back move together in a fixed ratio, with tension set to the sitter's weight.
- Column and base
- Central gas column on a five-star base with castors.
Movement
Bought where buying is better.
The reclining movement is not an invention. A Donati synchro mechanism was chosen and designed around, because a proven unit gives the sitter a reliable ratio between seat and back and a tension adjustment that can be dialled to their weight.
That decision moved the design effort to where it could be felt: the shell geometry, the segmented cushioning and the way the arms meet the seat.
Thinking
When the structure is the finish, there is nothing left to cover up.
Studies and details
Closing note
A working prototype was built by De La Oliva in Spain — plywood shell, recycled leather cushioning and the synchro mechanism as specified.