Over the course of history, from the age of the Egyptians up to that of
Napoleon, a folding chair has always been seen as an object of status
and beauty. In recent times this focus has shifted. This is a pity;
especially in today’s world the concept of folding has so much to offer!
A folding chair not only saves valuable floor space and
makes moving a breeze, more importantly it allows you to sit down
wherever you like. The beach, the park, you name it! Add to that the
fact that it’s easy to send by mail, and thus drastically reducing CO2
emissions when transported efficiently in bulk, and you can see why in a
modern world foldable furniture is as relevant as it ever was.
Keeping this in mind and being inspired by folded paper sculptures, I
folded a tiny, elegant, paper scale model of a chair. Even though it was
just a simple cut-out from a single sheet of paper, it was surprisingly
strong. And even better: it didn’t look like anything I’d ever seen
before!
Early 2009, I and fellow industrial designer Tom
Schouten founded our company. We called it Flux, referring to change and
the words flexible and luxury. Since then, we have put all our energy
into turning this small paper model into our first fully-fledged
flexible design: the Flux Chair.
