Image: Sheepish chair by Diapo

 

At Diapo, the buzzword is playful creativity, the emphasis placed on finding fun solutions to everyday problems. What to do with chairs, for example, when you don’t want to be sitting on them. Sheepish is the latest product from Diapo, a chair that folds up flat: notionally for storage; in reality for displaying on the wall as a sculptural visual marvel, because the legs, back and seat align themselves most bizarrely into the shape of a sheep. Honest. This is the type of chair, rarely come across, that is even more pleasing when it’s not being sat on.

All this you might expect, however, from the man who painted an A-Z map all over the floor of the Alphabet bar in Soho, and wheeled in vehicle-style chairs.

Sheepish hails a new approach to product design at Diapo, announcing the partnership of its founder, Nathan Abbey with a new designer, Per Fagring, recently departed from the Bartlett architecture school, with an international furniture design prize already under his belt. Per’s Masurka chair, on show at Design UK – Pick of 2003 during 100% Design, won the Japanese Edee prize, and he has headed straight into one of London’s most creative design studios.

“Ideas are easy to come by - the hardest thing is to turn those into something,” says Nathan. “Sheepish was very complicated because it folds in a very unusual way that has never been explored before. But the way it folds emphasises all the details we wanted to show off, and allows it to be used completely differently as a wall piece.”

The idea of versatility also lies behind Duo, a convertible breakfast bar and dining table that addresses the problem of our ever-decreasing living space. Dual functionality will be the key behind Diapo’s next full furniture range, following on from this first product.

“The important thing at Diapo is the communication between the design process and manufacture. We deal with design in a human way, trying not to complicate things and trusting the process.”

They may say there is nothing to it – just a good deal of trust that the process will make a success of the design, but Diapo has a sterling record of putting its finger on it, with a raft of smart, fantastic looking products.

“Every designer has limitations,” Nathan says, “so we complement each other’s abilities. Per’s technical ability and my manufacturing background seem to go well together.” Inventive design at Diapo just developed an even brighter future.

 

September 2003