February 2006 • Observed
About Face
By Kristi Cameron
One could get the wrong impression of the 2F chair from its abbreviation of “Two-Face,” which also happens to be the moniker of a conflicted Batman villain. With a profile of less than an inch and a different appearance on each side, it is somewhat elusive. But there’s nothing sinister about Finnish industrial designer Hannu Kähönen’s super-efficient seat. Scheduled for release this spring from Martela, the birch-plywood 2F can be stored completely flat, unfolds backward or forward (in effect making it two chairs in one), and generates virtually no waste wood during production. “I thought about how it could be done by cutting the pattern from a sheet like a paper doll,” Kähönen says. “I wanted to keep it very simple, with few mechanical parts, so that when it’s flat it looks like a graphic outline more than a chair.” Or a cartoon perhaps?
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