At this year’s Maison Shanghai Furniture Design Fair, MASS DESIGN launched their first furniture line, BASICS, in collaboration with TIWU. This inaugural furniture range includes all pieces required to furnish a home. To launch the line at Maison Shanghai, an installation of twenty-five Simple Chairs were roughly stacked on top of one another to form a ‘Chair Pile’. It proved a very popular spot to snap a selfie!
In four short days, visitors dropped by to decode the pile. Correlations with Mobike piles were posited however the inspiration draws from the accidental architectural installations found on construction sites.
Poetics aside, everyone who sat in the Simple Chair had the opportunity to appreciate its ergonomic design. At its core, BASICS is a series conceived from the utility of minimal design that is free of extraneous detail and focused on functionality in living spaces.
The architects set out to test their idea. After successfully stacking Chair Pile in the MASS office, they built the real Chair Pile for the furniture fair.
BASICS’ clean appearance and stackability have clear design advantages for our small urban spaces. It also meant that when the fair ended and it was time to pack up, MASS only needed a small cart, a few hands, and they could all go home.
Although the fair is finished, MASS has many more projects in the works. At this fair, MASS was lucky enough to make over 500 new friends. Everyone’s support is a huge source of encouragement. For the time being, BASICS is not yet available for purchase, but in the future, anything is possible – so keep following us for a surprise next month.
