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A NEW TAKE ON MONOBLOC CHAIRS

The Monobloc plastic chair has sold billions, and it is one of the most popular chairs in the world. Can we consider it a design success?⁣ In terms of popularity and sales, we can certainly give lots of credits to the Monobloc chair. ⁣Nowadays, however, the notion of success within the design world is changing. A Good and successful design must tackle pollution, climate change and our world’s contemporary issues. ⁣

The monobloc chair is made in one single production process out of 3 kilos of polypropylene at 200 degrees Celsius. The carbon footprint of each chair is circa 10 kg CO2.* This worldwide chair is far from being sustainable. ⁣Can we still learn from its design though? When it comes to design and technologies, we can always learn from previous experiences.⁣ German industrial designer Konstantin Grcic and the Italian brand Magis got together and decided to take a new look at the monobloc plastic chairs. ⁣

Konstantin explains that he realized how rational these chairs are and start to see in them a great potential for a new sustainable design. Together with Magis, Konstantin Grcic is now launching the Bell Chair.⁣

Bell Chair is made of recycled polypropylene obtained from the waste generated by Magis’ furniture production and from the local car industry. The patented material excludes almost all “virgin and new” materials and can be 100% recycled after use. The chair weighs just 2.7 kilograms and is evidence of the least use of material and energy consumption.

To save additional resources, Magis has developed a logistics concept with a specially-designed reusable delivery pallet, which can stack up to 24 chairs. As a result, less packaging material is used, and the vertical stack reduces the footprint during transportation.⁣ At the same time, the pallet doubles up as store display for retail partners and is made from the same recycled plastic as the chair.⁣

Bell Chair presents us a new take on monobloc chairs that helps us to deal with industrial waste instead of generating it, and that balances sustainability, versatility and aesthetics.



Photo credit: @magis_official

*Source: Aikaterini Valouma, Technical University of Crete.

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