When designer Torgny Fjeldskaar isn’t designing bicycles (he is the head of industrial design at Cannondale), he’s making bad ass carbon furniture– all under the brand name Laisr.

Laisr is a furniture brand created and owned by Torgny Fjeldskaar and Javier Alberich. The company is based in Basel, Switzerland. We do high-tech furniture designed and hand-made to stand the test of time. Our current products are designed by Torgny Fjeldskaar, whose daytime job is to design high-end bicycles for Cannondale, a company famous for its innovative use of high-tech materials. Javier Alberich is the creative director. He also worked several years at Cannondale in the past. Currently he’s working as a freelance graphic designer and illustrator.

Hat tip to Swiss Miss for finding this incredible site: Chair Whore. A blog dedicated entirely to chair pictures. Good timing, because today I’m wearing this shirt.

When we think of a rocking chair, a memory springs to mind of grandma knitting while emitting creaky sounds with continuous reclining effort. Rainer Mutsch has erased those images with his fresh take on the familiar furnishing. Rather than focus on the literal action one experiences while seated, the Austrian designer goes with a bolder (or boulder) approach by fashioning a seat in the shape of a rock formation. However, there’s more appeal to this piece than the ability to sit on a pseudo stone. The chair is designed using a polgyonal structure that puts the accent on the most vital ergonomic sections, which helps minimize the material and weight of the structure and makes your sitting experience all the more comfortable. Rock on!

Via MoCo LoCo

It would be easy to be blue about the lack of eye-catching public design in many city centers if it weren’t for gems like Slovenian design consultancy Asobi’s outdoor chairs placed along the main street of the city of Ljubljana. The Slovenska Street revitalization project features transformable orange benches and chairs that were designed to be light but durable. The ARPRO material the chairs were created from is completely recyclable and has been used in everything from Volvo cars to baby car seats. Another approach to introducing seating space and blocking local traffic may not have received the same public welcome, which has encouraged the chairs to be made available for sale on the modular furniture site Movisi.

If you’re big into sitting and design, you’ll want to be at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair next week in New York when former House & Garden Style Editor Brooke Stoddard speaks with world-famous German designer and head of KGID, Konstantin Grcic, from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m on May 17th. Over the years, Grcic has developed products for companies such as Flos, Montina, and Cappellini, and his most recent project is the MYTO cantilevered chair that was commissioned by chemical company BASF and designed for Plank out of a new synthetic material. He has also been hired to design all of the furniture pieces for the expansion of Long Island’s Parrish Art Museum and fans will be able to admire his work when it opens in 2009.

What do you get when you combine an up and coming Belgian designer with Brazilian inspiration? Belgilian desperation? Actually, the result looks like some pretty astonishing home furnishings courtesy of 2004 Design Academy Eindhoven graduate Pieter Maes. Having spent a good deal of time in the South American country, Maes found himself gaining an appreciation for Brazilian culture, as well as its long history of modern contemporary furniture. So, it’s not much of a surprise that Maes teamed up with New York based-company Brastilo, who are known for their line of home furnishings “inspired by the Brazilian love for an easy lifestyle and stunning design.” Maes’s creations are marked by an equal fondness for geometric figures as well as elements of the natural Brazilian landscape. His stunning collection — consisting of everything from chairs to cabinetry — is expertly made by Brastilo’s own craftsman using the finest eco-friendly wood from their private reserve in southern Brazil, enhancing the authenticity of these aggressive, edgy designs.

Who knew that coming up with the perfect idea for making the perfect outdoor stool was as simple as replacing the letter ‘T’ in Stool with the letter ‘P’. Okay, so maybe that’s not how the Gillia Brothers, the driving force behind Bottega Montana came up with the idea for their outdoor Spool Stool, but what’s important is that they came up with it. This wonderfully practical seating option designed specifically for outdoor use, may look like it could possibly roll away on you, but in actuality it’s designed with sturdiness in mind. The grooved base allows for helps to maintain stability on uneven surfaces and along with the cylindrical hole give this cedar stool an ample design for aeration. The design also ensures ample drainage so that even after a hard rain falls, your underside won’t get all wet. We like a design that takes our wellbeing into consideration.

Related: Bottega + Paul Smith Skateboards

Sick of your butt getting wet at the park after those pesky springtime sunshowers? No more, thanks to the Rolling Bench from Sungwoo Park, which features a hand-crank to ensure your rear gets a clean, dry piece of real estate to park itself upon. Sweet action.

Yanko Design via CH

Normally we wouldn't recommend sitting on something that resembled an electrical tower, due to the likelihood of receiving a shock the magnitude of which could send a Delorean back to 1955 (or 1985 for that matter), but we'll make an exception for the Faraday Stool designed by Dutch duo Teun Fleskens and Ingmar Cramers. Named after famed English scientist, Michael Faraday — noteable for contributions to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry — the structure was borne out of the designers' desire to craft using the medium of steel wire; ultimately resulting in a seat that's surprisingly light, solid, and ergonomic.

In case you hadn’t figured it out already, I’m a HUGE fan of mid-century furniture…and the newer stuff inspired by the masters. So, naturally, I got a little excited when I stumbled upon the Mute Chair by San Francisco design group Council. The Mute Chair immediately hearkens back to greats like Bertoia’s Bird Chair and Saarinen’s Womb Chair. I love the slightly smaller scale of the Mute Chair and the calming, organic lines that it presents.

According to Council, “The Mute chair is designed to inspire serenity and calm.” And somehow it does exactly that. In fact, I’d love nothing more than spending what promises to be a disgusting Friday curled up in one with a good book. Or maybe my computer — at least then I can pretend that I’m being productive.

Young industrial designer James Rennick’s Hedge Chair. It comes standard with a reading light and lamp shade, and an ottoman. It looks sturdy and I suspect it of being comfortable. To further connect it to traditional Irish hedge chairs, it’s made from salvaged wood. What is a traditional Irish hedge chair? Well I’m glad you asked, because I had to look it up. According to the Center for Traditional Skills located in the Old Railway station of Lismore, Ireland (roughly here), a hedge chair is “a slab seated chair, often made by a hedge carpenter or householder, from local timbers.” Seriously, Wikipedia doesn’t have anything on hedge chairs. I nominate James Rennick to write the article.

What James has done here, as he helpfully explains on his website, is marry the old and the new. His chair hearkens back to a much simpler, much rougher time in Ireland’s history, but remains relevant to the present. Though really, a place to put your ass is always relevant, isn’t it?

The Eames name has long been a defining point in the world of mod. So what happens when you take a classic mod piece and update it with an even more modern material? You get these carbon fiber Eames shell chairs from Garageworks Industries.

Available as a side chair, an arm chair, or a rocker, and in slightly varying weave colors, these renditions offer an interesting textural update to the modern classic shell chair; they’d look great in a minimal room with a lot of black or white. That said, I personally prefer the bright colors of the DWR Eames reproductions.

Via AT:LA

–Danny Nathan

This weekend, while retrieving a dog-slobber-drenched tennis ball wedged between my sheets, I wouldn’t have considered a constructive or attractive use for such things, besides a non-noisy chew toy for Stella and a reason for guys to stare at Maria Sharipova whilst claiming to have a “valid” excuse. +Remy/Veenhuizen’s Tennis Ball Benches, designed for the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam though, gave me a new appreciation for the humble tennis ball, as they now provide fun, striking — and apparently quite comfortable — seating for hundreds of museum patrons every day. Tejo Remy discussed this project (amongst others) on this year’s Reclaiming Design panel at HauteGreen in NYC, which you can catch in it’s entirety here if you missed it.

via Inhabitat

It’s hard for me to admit this, but there’s been a void in my life. I love to sit on piles of stuffed animals, and I love to sit on chairs. But there’s never been a chair made of stuffed animals…until now.

From Fernando and Humberto Campana, Brazilian design extraordinaires, comes a truly strange collection of “banquet chairs.” The seats and backs of the chairs are made of stuffed animals (mostly endangered), and the legs are metal. They are jagged-edged and odd looking, but absolutely eye-catching and original. The chairs are available exclusively from Moss and production is limited to 25, which pretty much guarantees that you’ll be the only person in the neighborhood with an alligator banquet chair. My personal favorite, though, is the panda version; they always looked like they’d be good to sit on. Is this what God meant when he gave us dominion over animals?

–Dan Steckenberg

I officially had a fanboy moment last night, when Ian Walton shot us an email about the latest addition to his portfolio, the ulo chair. Upon watching the video of how it converts from its “upright” to “lounge” positions I have to say that the chair is, for lack of a better word, totally hot. Much like his Glo Pillow and the Miele Cultivate System I’ve covered previously, the ulo is an innovative modern update on what many times might be considered a mundane or boring living necessity; it also takes cues and inspiration from compact living situations (like the WeeHouses), hence the double-duty. The chair is on display at the NCAD Graduate Show in Dublin until the 17th of June. Don’t fret if you don’t get to see it now…I’m positive we’ll be seeing huge things from Ian very, very soon.