Another Life for Furniture

Another Life For Furniture

Deconstructed upholstery

“For quite some time we have nurtured the idea to experiment with upholstery and reveal to others the magical process that we see.

Each time we work on upholstering a traditional sofa it evokes us the inside of a piano: it is functional, aesthetically beautiful, precisely constructed and very complex to build…. it is an object that continues to reveal itself.

It inspired us to transform a traditional chesterfield sofa to one with upholstery that comes apart to show the springs, cords, webbing and the old frame.

At the beginning of 2012 in order to develop this idea, we created the Josephine B_chair and 5 months later we undertook the development of the Baubau_sofa.

The Josephine B_chair started as an experimental project to develop, on a smaller scale, our plans for the chesterfield sofa, however, it became a piece on its own right: a common chair with quite an exceptional look. Each upholstered part: wings, arms, back and seat can be removed, simply by unfastening press buttons and a system of elastic webbing that secures them to the chair-frame. 

Developing the idea for the chair was a huge step towards our grand project the Baubau_sofa.”

The chesterfield sofa now has the same characteristics as the chair, all of the upholstered parts can be removed, thanks to the press fasteners and elastic webbing. When all else is removed, only the beautiful cage of “hand-tied springs” on the seat and back of the sofa remain visible. The Baubau sofa reveals one of the oldest, magical processes, which in the upholstery world is part of the traditional technique, but usually this becomes hidden due to the subsequent layers that are normally added.

The cushions have been stuffed mostly with wool, except from the booster of the back and arms that are made of foam. The hand-stitched mattress is stuffed with carded lamb’s wool and layers of wool sheets have been used to make the shaped cushions on the back.

Whilst the chair has been recovered with plain and natural colour mixing wool fabrics and linen to create a “chiaroscuro”.

To cover the sofa we teamed-up with artist Laura Hamilton, whose company

‘Bird In The Hand’, produces hand printed textiles, inspired by Jamaican prints from the 60's and 70's.

For the first time the furniture were presented to the public at Tent London 2012, displaying them in conjuction with Bird In The Hand.