by The sofa is reinterpreted as a reconfigurable hammock in this concept presented at Stockholm Design Week by electronics brand Samsung and design studio Form Us With Love.
Shift is a prototype textile “observation platform” that can change shape depending on the number of people using it and the number of screens used in the space.
Form Us With Love developed the concept after Samsung Nordic asked the Stockholm studio to speculate on how the sofa of the future will respond to the changing role of the television.
“TV has come a long way in the last 10 years, and not just the TV itself, but also what we use it for,” said Magnus Per Nilsson, product manager for Northern Europe at Samsung.
“You can use the TV to video call your relatives, you can use it to play games, you can use it to exercise,” he said.
“We wanted to explore what this means for the future of furniture. The process aims to stimulate our imagination of how consumers might use our products.”
The Shift prototype, on display at Form Us With Love’s Stockholm studio, hangs like a large hammock on the walls of a makeshift space.
The designers have also created a series of mockups and visualizations showing how the textile could be attached to a frame or stretched to create different seating positions incorporating a traditional sofa shape.
Karin Blomberg, design manager at Form Us With Love, said the goal was to create a design that was more flexible and space efficient than a static sofa.
This takes into account the idea that living environments are becoming more and more multifunctional and that other screens are used in addition to the television.
“We have more screens in our homes than we did 10 years ago, so we’ll probably have even more in the next 10,” Blomberg said.
“If you look at the sofa today, it’s still a very traditional piece of furniture,” she continued.
“It’s not really suitable for families where everyone is watching something on a different device but is equally gathered on the sofa. It also takes up many square meters when you are not using it.”
Shift was designed with the idea that you could move it between rooms or pack it away when not in use.
“What we want to achieve with this is the flexibility to take away or reconfigure a sofa,” added Blomberg.
“The sofa molds itself around you, not the other way around.”
The prototype uses significantly fewer materials than the traditional sofa, which is mostly made of foam.
It is made from ribbons of textile sewn together in a pattern resembling basket weave. The designers did not specify what this textile will be made of.
“We don’t know what materials we’ll have in the future, so the idea had to be adaptable to new materials,” Blomberg said.
The prototype combines black and white with bright blue and orange tones, while material samples show other possible color combinations and patterns.
Form Us With Love often launches projects during Stockholm Design Week, with examples from the past including mix-it-yourself cosmetics brand Forgo and the Testing Grounds prototype tests.
Shift can be seen in the studio’s flexible new studio spaces, which opened their doors for the first time during Stockholm Design Week in September 2022.
The designers hope the design will “inspire the industry to think outside the box when it comes to future sofa design”.
“We’re not putting any product on the market. But maybe we can inspire the industry to think about reducing the amount of material in furniture and making it smarter,” added Jonas Pettersson, CEO and co-founder of Form Us With Love.
Shift will be on view February 7-10, 2023 as part of Stockholm Design Week at Studio Form Us With Love. Browse our digital festival guide or visit the Dezeen Events Guide for more architecture and design events around the world.
