Werner Aisslinger’s Chair Farm at Milan Design Week

Part of Ventura Lambrate’s Instant Stories by DMY, Werner Aisslinger presented a vision for the future, when furniture could be grown rather than made.

Each stand was framed by a wooden box mounted on a trestle table, enabling each design to create a little world where anything might be possible.

In Werner Aisslinger’s world: “A chair is born from a steel corset! After the removal of the corset, a unique chair is revealed — truly singular, because nature cannot be programmed to deliver a certain result… (or can it!?)

…The chair is no longer produced in the classical sense of the word. Instead, it grows of its own volition in a greenhouse or on a field. When it has reached maturity, the steel corset is opened and removed, revealing a naturally grown chair.”

The title of the project “The Chair Farm” reflects the utopian ambitions of this this Berlin-based designer, who imagines huge “product plantations” in the future.

It certainly makes you think about what might be possible…

Our trip to Milan was supported in part by Airbnb.com.

Katie Treggiden is a purpose-driven journalist, author and, podcaster championing a circular approach to design – because Planet Earth needs better stories. She is also the founder and director of Making Design Circular, a program and membership community for designer-makers who want to join the circular economy. With 20 years' experience in the creative industries, she regularly contributes to publications such as The Guardian, Crafts Magazine and Monocle24 – as well as being Editor at Large for Design Milk. She is currently exploring the question ‘can craft save the world?’ through an emerging body of work that includes her fifth book, Wasted: When Trash Becomes Treasure (Ludion, 2020), and a podcast, Circular with Katie Treggiden.

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