About Face Swivel Lounge Chair - MTO

Our goal with About Face was to create a lounge chair with a smaller footprint. A design that’d make a great accent piece or look pretty as a pair. Quiet, but still really interesting. While sketching, we gravitated toward a silhouette that looked like a monolithic chunk of upholstery that swivels. We liked the simplicity of a single material (leather!), and we loved its chunkiness. We just needed to apply shape. To create a prototype, we carved insulation foam and glued it together for a rough form. Then we focused on every subtle detail, beginning with the slight curvature of the arms, which ever-so-gently lean back.

The way upholstery comes together tends to make the form feel bulky. To keep our silhouette looking refined, we gave the arms a delicate knife edge. Next, we honed in on comfort. Creating a pillowy-soft seat required a just-right pitch. It took a lot of tweaking, but where the tighter upholstery around the back and sides interact with the plush seat makes for some beautiful surface tension and a very pleasing sit. Hiding the swivel was also a challenge. We formed the silhouette in a way that made it a nice surprise, but not the focal point. The result is a beautifully carved shape that’s sophisticated in its simplicity and chunky yet real freakin’ elegant.