Michael Young Studio has launched The Tea Chair at Maison et Objet Paris. The product is part of a new 10 piece collection created for Chinese lifestyle brand Zens. The concept was created as part of a restaurant project by Zens that will focus on the art of drinking tea. The laminated wood has been three-dimensionally formed, a technique that is still relatively complex to achieve in Asia.
“Finding a place for a competitive wooden chair on the market these days is near impossible so I decided against a tradition four-legged base to something more akin to Sori Yanagi and celebrating the process. The legs are fixed by a simple through mortise and tenon joint.”
Young says “ I’ve been obsessed by creating a compound wooden shell for a long time, the reality is that these forms are achieved easily in plastics but in laminated Oak, it’s an engineering art form and very few factories have the capacity to build stable shells.
The Chair comes with matching tables but for the rest of the collection, we focused on microenvironments.
“I was not expecting to sell a set of six dining chairs to the domestic market in China, that is a privilege that is fading fast. I see this as a single chair to drop into any environment outside of the contract market. The rest of the set celebrates mixed-use live and workspace, rugs that come out of the walls, cushions to sit on the floor with and low tray tables for eating on the floor or work on a laptop.”
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