Silver Furniture Design · 2020
Tomeo Outdoor Metallic Chair
- A' Design Award 2020 Silver Winner in Furniture Design
- Awarded April 15, 2020
- CLIENT: Hugo Charlet Design Studio
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 55,335
- Verification code 924478F3E9 · Verify this award
About Tomeo Outdoor Metallic Chair
During the 60s, visionary designers developed the first plastic furniture. The designers’ talent coupled with the versatility of the substance led to its indispensability. Both designers and consumers became addicted to it. Today, we know its environmental dangers. Still, restaurant terraces remain filled with plastic chairs. This is because the market offers little alternative. The design world remains sparsely populated with manufacturers of steel furniture, even sometimes republishing designs from the late 19th century… Here comes the birth of Tomeo: a modern, light & stackable steel chair.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- Tomeo’s structure has a surprising and innovative geometry which clearly differentiates it from other products on the market. It is as if the skeleton of the chair has come out of its body, the seat is narrower than the backrest at the rear and the chair legs jut out towards the sides. The armrests protrude from the backrest at a forty-five-degree angle to meet the front chair legs. The feet of which are directly below the front edge of the seat giving the impression that the seat and the backrest are suspended inside the structure.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- 510 x 560 x 820 without armrests
590 x 550 x 820 with armrests - Tags
- chair, furniture, design, outdoor, metal, elegant, outdoor furniture, decoration, chairs, armchair.
- Production Technology
- The above photos show Tomeo’s prototypes made from plastic tubes and 3D printed pieces assembled together. The seat is made from rubber and from plastic rods for the second version. The real chair will be made from bended steel pipes welded together and the seat will be made from metallic rods or plastic rubber.
- Design Challenge
- The challenge was to give Tomeo a shape that would clearly differentiate it from existing products but that would still not be beyond what the consumer would accept in terms of innovation. In addition, I worked to make this innovative structure equally as robust as that of traditional chairs and to build the 1:1 prototypes.
- Project Duration
- This project started in 2019 and was finished in 2020 in Milan.
- Operation Flow
- Tomeo’s uniqueness comes from its original structure. Considerable attention was dedicated to the look, which had to be simple but contemporary. Many pieces of metallic furniture on the market are strongly inspired from older designs from the 20th century. Tomeo is truly different from what already exists because the design itself questions the traditional chair structure. It was also designed to be light and stackable to meet essential consumer needs.
- Research
- My design process strongly relied on my intuition coupled with a great knowledge and understanding of the history of furniture design. Everyday life, society, my imagination, my history and my dreams are all ingredients for my subconscious soup. If my designs reveal indisputably a part of myself they are also a reflection of the world we are living in.
- Inspiration
- This design takes its inspiration from the meticulous and exhaustive observation of contemporary furniture market, as well as from trends and aesthetic language evolution. The initial goal wasn't only to achieve an appealing appearance but also to propose a unique geometry that will differentiate Tomeo from all other chairs of its category.
- Image Credits
- image #1: Photographer Hugo Charlet berguerand, tomeo, 2020.
image #2: Photographer Hugo Charlet berguerand, tomeo, 2020.
image #3: Photographer Hugo Charlet berguerand, tomeo, 2020.
image #4: Photographer Hugo Charlet berguerand, tomeo, 2020.
image #5: Photographer Hugo Charlet berguerand, tomeo, 2020.
Colors of Tomeo Outdoor Metallic Chair
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G0E3 ShopDesign Interview about Tomeo Outdoor Metallic Chair
Tomeo is an outdoor metal chair made from bent metal pipes. It is a light and stackable chair initially thought to offer an elegant and robust alternative to plastic chairs for the outdoors. The idea is in the structure which has a unique geometry, the rear legs pass in front of the backrest and turn back to join on the top of the backrest. Thus the back rest angle is different from the rear legs‘ angle.
The aim was to design a chair that would be appealing both in the eyes of the consumer, meeting best design quality and market trends but also to be interesting in the eyes of the industrialist. Considerable efforts were dedicated to make an industrializable product with a reasonable production cost yet unique look.
My Goal is to promote my award-winning design Tomeo as well as my other realizations and start collaborations with furniture manufacturers. I am currently less focused on designing new products, I spend more time on promoting my work and trying to get visibility in order to find clients and start new collaborations.
More or less one month and a half.
This chair is the work I presented for my master’s degree graduation project.
I would like to find an agreement with a manufacturer to lease the production rights, I aim to work as a furniture designer, so I don’t want to produce my designs myself forever.
The observation that wherever one looks, restaurant terraces remain filled with plastic chairs. I realised that the market’s offer in terms of metal chairs was really limited. Moreover, metallic furniture manufacturers sometimes do little more than re-publishing furniture designed during the early 20th century. Furthermore, the theme of outdoor furniture has always been of strong interest to me, that’s why I especially wanted to design this type of chair.
My worked is always tinted from the influence of the designers and artists I admire.
This is supposed to be an affordable chair addressed to everybody.
Tomeo’s uniqueness comes from its original structure. Tomeo’s structure has a surprising and innovative geometry which clearly differentiates it from other products on the market. It is as if the skeleton of the chair has come out of its body: the seat is narrower than the backrest at the rear and the chair legs jut out towards the sides. The armrests protrude from the backrest at a forty-five-degree angle to meet the front chair legs. The feet are directly below the front edge of the seat giving the impression that the seat and the backrest are suspended inside the structure.
When I started this project, I was working at Michele de Lucchi’s office in Milan. Anybody interested in furniture design surely knows the iconic lamp architect Michele de Lucchi designed for Artemide: Toloméo. This best seller contributed to make him the worldwide known designer we know nowadays. I gave a similar name to my design to bring me luck and because I liked this short and friendly name.
I worked on Rhino3D and Keyshot for the drawing part. For the prototyping, I worked with 3D printers and many different machines available at Politecnico di Milano’s workshops.
It is really a product that would easily find its place in the market. It’s contemporary and elegant look. It’s reasonable price would allow it to be a very competitive product. Moreover, the branch of metallic furniture is extremely trendy nowadays with the very bad image plastic drags. But the market remains sparsely populated with metal furniture, and few pieces are well designed, most of it are reproduction of early 20century’s designs (bistrot chair, Luxembourg, …). There is space, even a need on the market for such a chair.
I did everything alone but tried to seek out feedback from as various inputs as possible along the way.
This design is thought to be easily manufacturable with classic technologies used in the furniture industry.
I lived two years in Milan, and I had the opportunity to visit Italian leading furniture brands, I also participated to many different furniture fairs. I am always on the lookout for new products and market trends. Additionally, in my everyday life I tend to keep an eye on the furniture in restaurants bars, hotels, eetc. Wherever I go.
The prototyping phase was sometimes tricky and required a very delicate and attentive work to achieve the desired quality.
I was satisfied with my work and I wanted to promote it.
A very tricky part when designing a chair is to adjust the dimensions. Indeed, you’re not going to be able to sit on it before a long time, so it is a big challenge not to make mistakes on the proportions when you work on a computer. Another difficulty was to make this chair stackable. Designing a stackable chair is far from being trivial, I struggled quite a lot to achieve such without affecting the initial look too much. Then I had to prepare the prototype’s fabrication which required to go much more into details in your drawings. I had to separate my chair in straight and curved sections and to design the joins. And I also had to figure out how to 3D print objects…