This Minimal Wood Chair Was Built to Waste Nothing
In 2020, Max Lamb set himself a challenge. In three days, the British furniture designer produced 60 identical chairs by himself, handmaking 540 individual parts from polyurethane sheets to create the “Economy Chair,” arguably his most recognizable design.
Because of the nuances of the hand-carved and painted polystyrene foam, a conventional-looking piece of seating — four legs, a tall back, everything joined together at right angles — becomes quietly radical. Or, as Swedish furniture company Hem puts it, "subtly subversive".
For their third collaboration, Hem helped Lamb finally put his genius chair into production.
Through some refining and tweaking, they’ve made what they’re calling “the most resolved iteration to date.”
Max Lamb and Hem produce each Economy Chair, officially named “Min Chairs”, entirely of sleek pinewood panels cut diagonally so that once a chair is fully constructed, it leaves close to zero waste.
Every element must be carefully thought through to achieve this. The triangular legs, for example, use almost half the material of traditional square legs resulting in what Lamb described as “two legs for the price of one.”
After showcasing their wooden chairs at June’s 3 Days of Design festival in Copenhagen, Hem will release the Min Chairs for $899, literally producing another example of the ample ways Lamb is inventing better methods of furniture production.
The designer’s previous work includes transforming cardboard boxes from an Acne Studios project into sturdy colorful seats, grinding up hotel trash into plastic for a $559 flat pack armchair, and cutting bespoke thrones for a Bottega Veneta show out of discarded food containers using hot wires. Fitting that even Lamb’s mass-produced seats would yield as little waste as possible.
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