Like soap powder box design, living room seating has proved strangely impervious to the revolutionary changes that have permeated almost every other aspect of our lives. The sofa (a.k.a. couch, or worse, settee) still dominates, as comfort and the possibility of interaction are sacrificed to tradition. Developments in personal stereo, television and other gadgetry means that the concept of personal space (and the idea of being uninhibitedly comfortable in it) is something that we are becoming more familiar, and literally at home, experimenting with. The architecture and design of living rooms is finally beginning to take an evolutionary step.
When the first sofa alternative and original bean bag, the Sacco, was designed by Piero Gatti, Cesare Paolini and Franco Teodoro and mass produced by premiere Italian furniture manufacturer Zanotta in 1968, their bold colours were so ‘now’ that they all but disappeared with late-sixties and seventies memorabilia. Eighties and nineties opulence favoured the sofa once more, although at least most were enormous enough to accommodate true lounging. It’s only recently that design and social developments have encouraged a re-evaluation of Sacco and its descendants.
Solid upholstery is either being replaced
by softer options, or moulded to look softer. Hiro-Hiko Kamiya’s five-metre
foam sausage, Buldang, was commissioned in 2002 by VIA, the French
association that promotes new ideas in furniture. For the same collection
the British designer Mark Robson produced Fly with its yielding yet
supportive fabric stretched over a carbon-fibre-framed squiggle. For a less
polished interpretation of the bean bag theme look to Elise Fouin’s
Libération armchair, essentially a plastic bag stuffed with newspaper, which
was included in VIA’s 2003 Design Schools collection.
Design of this type can be interactive. Ron Arad’s collaboration with
Inflate saw the creation of Memo, an inflatable beanbag-shaped seat that
‘memorises’ the sitter’s imprint with the aid of a vacuum cleaner, and can
be inflated or deflated, made hard or soft, to suit individual preferences.
Monster (2000), KRD’s futuristic floor-seating concept, is billed by
manufacturers Edra as the ‘organic evolution of the large floor cushion’.
Part sculpture, part seat, the idea is that its comfortable, sci-fi inspired
shape will encourage informal group lounging. Think of it as the modern day
equivalent of that key seventies feature, the conversation pit.
The importance of comfortable social lounging has long been recognised by the art world within a proliferation of video lounges and installations. Angela Bulloch’s 1997 Turner-Prize entry was centred around an oversized bean bag and her work Bean Bag Set, made up of four brightly coloured bean bags that gallery visitors were allowed to play on, appeared in the Against Design exhibition organised by the ICA Philadelphia, which toured the USA in 2000 and 2001. Dan Graham's pavilions and Johan Grimonprez's video lounges have featured tailor-made soft seating for years, and bean bags were imperative for all-night showings of Douglas Gordon’s 24 Hour Psycho at the Hayward Gallery’s Spellbound exhibition.
These concepts are also spilling out into the workplace. My Soft Office, Hella Jongerius’s contribution to MoMA’s 2001 Workspheres exhibition, which invited designers from around the world to contribute ideas for the changing workspace, featured computer screens set into a bed and keyboards into pillows. This growing unease with the architecture and design of the workplace, and not least the role it plays in our lives, is epitomised by the recognition of the downshifting phenomenon and new initiatives that go beyond those perennial ‘Dress-Down Fridays’.
South Africans Almero du Pisanie and Gyles Westcott conceived Shmangle, their London-based lifestyle company while squeezing in some leisure time after one too many 17-hour working days. ‘It started on the Underground, very early in the morning after a party. We wanted to come up with a popular, contemporary brand based on a new model.’ The word ‘shmangle’ is a South African colloquialism for that happily exhausted, post-party feeling, which they’re currently catering for in the shape of a sofa/bed-sized beanbag and a Teardrop bean chair. ‘We’re looking for quality and comfort in all aspects of our lives,’ Westcott says, ‘at work, at home, when we’re travelling, when we go on holiday. It’s not enough to buy something off the shelf and think that’s all there is.’
Far from keeping up with the Joneses, consumers don’t want what everyone else has. We want personalised products, services and experiences that mean something to us as individuals. And we want them delivered to our doorstep, since we are choosing to spend more of our quality time at home. According to a recent study by brand and trend analysts The Future Laboratory, home entertainment, in every sense, is increasing. The ready-made meals sector is enjoying a significant rise in sales, while some pub and restaurant chains report falls. Perhaps cinemas should be doing more to recreate a living-room ambience, since we’re doing our utmost to turn our homes into cinemas by installing state-of-the-art ‘home cinema’ widescreens and sound technology. In spite of what the pundits say, for some, going out is still more fun than staying in. That said, it’s not a bad time to be a homebody.
Liz Brown is a freelance writer living in London