Sitting in This Folded Doughnut-Shaped Seat Feels Like Floating on a Cloud

There are few things as satisfyingly spongy as a marshmallow. Think about it the next time you make a s’more: While rolling the cylindrical confection between your fingers, admire how its soft, elastic body effortlessly surrounds any pressure point with snow-white pillowy goodness. The Tube chair brings this tactile experience to a human-size scale, and sitting in it, as I did, feels like floating on a cloud. Made by architects Eleni Petaloti and Leonidas Trampoukis of the New York–based architecture firm LOT in collaboration with Norwegian designer Falke Svatun, the foam-and-fabric seat was originally created for Norway x New York, a May exhibition presented during New York Design Week that paired Norwegian designers with those from the Big Apple and instructed them to make something together. (Petaloti, Trampoukis, and Svatun did much of their collaborating over Skype). Now the chair is available for purchase in custom colors and upholstery as the latest piece in LOT’s product line, Objects of Common Interest. Like all of the firm’s work, the Tube chair is concerned primarily with materiality and intersecting forms—in this case, two torus volumes—that culminate in a fat, folded doughnut shape with an oblong hole at the center. From the side, it looks like an albino caterpillar, frozen in mid-crawl. Unlike the other roly-poly things that came to light during NYCxDesign, including Jumbo’s Neotenic lamp and Ana Kras’s Slon collection, the Tube chair is pliable, offering users the pleasure of sinking into its chubby form. It’s also big enough for two sitters, so the cushiony sensation can be shared.

(Photos: Charlie Schuck)