Bay Area Designers Present
World-Class Chairs at SFDC

It’s so easy to take chairs for granted. A seat, a back, four legs. It sounds simple, but some of the Bay Area’s best furniture designers insist that chairs are the most difficult items in their repertoires to design and produce. Whether it’s a dining chair, club chair, lounge chair, occasional chair or slipper chair, a chair needs to meld form, function and fit into one comfortable, stylish package.

Once upon a time the exclusive seats of privilege and status, for us chairs are indispensable tools for dining, working, resting and visiting that make our homes comfortable and inviting. The key is finding the right chair for the right space. Many Bay Area furniture designers, all shown at the San Francisco Design Center, have taken on the task of creating chairs that combine superb style with modern, state-of-the-art comfort.

“Is the space formal or casual? How are you going to live with it? Are you going to read the paper, watch TV, eat or visit with people,” asks Dan Winks, manager of the De Sousa Hughes showroom, as he introduces a selection of exquisitely comfortable chairs for relaxing and visiting by Bay Area designers.

The Edward Arm Chair by Geoff De Sousa takes a living room staple and makes it modern with clean lines, a pitched back for both comfort and style, and a high resilience foam core for better shape retention. Designed with versatility in mind, the chair is available with either a swivel base or with hidden casters so it can be moved quickly and easily.

The Lakeside Slipper chair by Erik Hughes offers a sleek take on a lounge chair. A slim upholstered back that wraps around a cushion with specialized lumbar support references a classic club chair without ever reminding you of your grandfather’s favorite chair. With its combination of ergonomics and low-profile style, the Lakeside is a smart chair in every sense of the word.

Also at De Sousa Hughes is Ted Boerner’s Skoop Chair. “The Skoop Chair was inspired by a blend of things – Arne Jacobsen’s Egg Chair, a classic wing-back chair and a family nestled together watching TV in a 1970s ranch house,” explains San Francisco designer Boerner.

Looking to create a particularly comfortable chair, Boerner built two full-size cardboard models, three cloth prototypes, plus several more cushion prototypes before he allowed the Skoop Chair to move into production. “It’s all about the geometry – the pitch of the back, the height of the arm, the seat height and depth.

If the geometry is right you don’t need as much cushioning,” says Boerner, who learned about the human body during his years as a costume designer. The design detail that distinguishes the Skoop Chair is a two-part back cushion with firm lumbar support at the bottom and down in the upper section. When someone sits in the chair the down is pushed up to support the head and neck. “I like to be held in a chair, not sitting on a marshmallow,” adds Boerner.

Conde House offers simple, modern classics for dining. The Verve Chair by Jennifer Morla, features a T-shaped laminated wood back attached to an upholstered seat via a metal plate for added strength. The solid wood legs taper in graceful outward arcs. “It’s challenging technically to make simplicity happen,” says Masayuki Homma, president of Conde House. “This is a well made, practical chair for daily use.”

Also at Conde House is the Ohashi Chair by East Bay architects Joy and Alan Ohashi. Simple, yet elegant, this dining chair sports a tall carved wooden back with a built-in lumbar curve for support. “This chair is a combination of form and function,” notes Joy Ohashi. “The high back gives shoulder support. It’s easy to sit in for a full Thanksgiving dinner.” The back is carved from one thick piece of wood, with peek-a-boo slats for vertical interest. The back tapers at the top, becoming narrower and narrower, a small pleasing detail that adds both comfort and eye appeal. “It’s hard to design a chair,” comments Ohashi. “It has to fit the human form just right.”

On a larger scale are the Ring Dining Chairs designed by Ironies in Berkeley and shown at Kneedler | Fauchère. Graphically striking with wooden circles embedded in the chair frame, the Ring Chairs (in both side chair and arm chair versions) encourage diners to sit up for good food and conversation. “In picking dining chairs, the important thing is to match the scale of the chair with the scale of the table,” notes Patrick Mouton of Kneedler | Fauchère. Ironies, like most lines at SFDC, is a custom line, so furniture can modified according to the client’s needs.

Famed San Francisco designer Orland Diaz-Azcuy has created a group of occasional or “pull-up” chairs for McGuire. The versatile chairs, with frames made of McGuire’s signature rattan and upholstered seats and occasionally backs, are appealingly light and fresh with details that offer a wink and a nod to classic European references. At once utilitarian and graceful, the chairs – in several styles – can be used to “pull-up” to a sofa or dining table or as an occasional chair for extra seating.

“I will sacrifice the aesthetic line for comfort on a chair,” says Diaz-Azcuy, who has designed for HFB and Steelcase in addition to creating custom pieces for individual clients. “Comfort is the first quality you need in a chair. Then it’s functionality so interior designers can use the piece where they want.” He also considers the scale when designing. “I was one of the first to enlarge the typical dimensions of a chair because people are larger. A six-foot tall man needs a chair that’s slightly bigger.”

Diaz-Azcuy notes that dining room chairs, which tend to be more formal, can have more physical weight and thus add more character to a room. “Aesthetically, it’s OK to have dining chairs with more presence because the chair is what you see. The back of the chair is more important visually than the front,” he says. With that in mind, the choice of fabric is very important to Diaz-Azcuy, who will often choose one fabric for
the seat and another for the upholstered back, creating striking, unexpected looks. He finds leather hard to sit on for long periods and silk damask potentially too slippery. The best fabrics, according to Diaz-Azcuy, are velvets, chenilles and linens, with the caveat that they’re not too light in color to take care of easily.

Designer Juin Ho, whose work is shown at Sloan Miyasato, cut his design chops working in hospitality. “I always look at the profile or silhouette of a chair,” says the Malaysia native who studied in Iowa and has worked all over the world. “When you walk into a hotel lobby, you see the furniture floating in space. I want the side profile of my pieces to be detailed, sexy and interesting.” The backs of his chairs are as important visually as the fronts. Trained in architecture, Ho’s work is structured and aligned, with great attention to stitching and other details.

In seating, Ho looks for “perfect support.” He uses three to five densities of foam to maintain his streamlined looks while offering comfort and support. After two to four prototypes, he lives with a new design in his studio for a while to see how he can improve it. Ho’s Ceylon chair, a slipper (no arms) version of a club chair, is an elegant, low-profiled piece with a companion curved ottoman. The wooden back frame has fine ribbing, inspired by bamboo plantations and intended to evoke a feeling of harmony. The subtle curves of the seat and back wrap themselves around the person seated, and the upholstery is detailed with double stitching, like a well-tailored suit, says Ho.

“Juin Ho has a refined eye,” notes Avner Lapovsky, co-principal of Sloan Miyasato. “He shot out like a meteor. He’s only in his early 30s, and he already has a nationally recognized body of work.” Other pieces by Juin Ho include the Ming Chair, an updated version of a club chair designed for smaller interiors and the Kasba Wing Chair, which was inspired by a trip to the English countryside. “I wanted to create a modern version of a wing chair with an overscale back to give a feeling of privacy and protection,” says Ho. You may have already seen the Kasba Wing Chair. Twenty-five of them, upholstered in bright red mohair, were used on the set of Oceans 13.