[ Nendo ] Cabbage Chair

Cabbage Chair is a new product by Japanese designers Nendo made of waste paper from the pleated fabric industry.

The paper is wrapped into a cylinder and cut vertically halfway down one side so that the layers can be peeled back one at a time.

Nendo designed the chair for the XXIst Century Man exhibition curated by Issey Miyake, which will be at 21_21 Design Sight in Tokyo from 30 March to 6 July 2008.

The following information is from Nendo:

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Nendo designed the cabbage chair for the XXIst Cetury Man exhibition curated by Issey Miyake to commemorate the first anniversary of 21_21 Design Sight in Roppongi, Tokyo.

Miyake asked us to make furniture out of the pleated paper that is produced in mass amounts during the process of making pleated fabric and usually abandoned as an unwanted by-product.

Our solution to his challenge transformed a roll of pleated paper into a small chair that appears naturally as you peel away its outside layers, one layer at a time.

Resins added during the original paper production process add strength and the ability to remember forms, and the pleats themselves give the chair elasticity and a springy resilience, for an overall effect that looks almost rough, but gives the user a soft, comfortable seating experience.

Since the production process is so simple, we thought that eventually the chair could be shipped as one compact roll for the user to cut open and peel back at home.

The chair has no internal structure. It is not finished and it is assembled without nails or screws. The primitive design responds gently to fabrication and distribution costs and environmental concerns, the kind of issues that face out 21^st century selves.

Thus, the cabbage chair fits active, optimistic and forward-moving “21^st century selves,” the kind of people who, to borrow a concept Miyake expressed during a meeting with us, “don’t just wear clothes, but shed their skin”.

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