Most furnishings asks you to adapt to it. You find the armrests, determine the place your again is meant to land, and quietly settle for that the cushions are extra ornamental than purposeful. The Osolo Lengthy Seating Unit by Turkish designer Gökçe Nafak doesn’t work that means. It arms you the construction and invitations you to determine the remainder. That’s not vagueness. It’s a really deliberate design stance, and when you see it, it’s onerous to unsee.
The Osolo Lengthy Seating Unit is a part of a broader collection that Nafak has been creating, all of which share one defining attribute: a single-piece folded metallic physique that capabilities as each the structural body and the visible basis of the whole piece. That single resolution is doing huge work right here. The folded metallic isn’t simply holding the cushions up. It defines the silhouette, creates an open cavity beneath for books, magazines, or small objects, and offers the piece a type of architectural confidence that almost all upholstered furnishings merely doesn’t have. Once you have a look at it from the facet, the curve of metallic bending upward from the ground reads extra like a constructing element than a furnishings leg. That’s not a coincidence.
Designer: Gökçe Nafak
The low-to-the-ground profile is the place the cultural reference kicks in. The Osolo collection attracts from the custom of the sedir, a built-in seating type that was central to the standard Turkish residence. The sedir was positioned alongside the partitions of a room, constructed immediately into the structure, and upholstered with cushions and bolsters. It was low, linear, and multifunctional lengthy earlier than multifunctional furnishings grew to become a pattern. What’s price noting is that the sedir was largely displaced through the nineteenth century as Western furnishings types, together with sofas, armchairs, and eating units, moved into Ottoman houses and reshaped the way in which interiors had been organized and skilled. Nafak appears to be making a quiet argument that one thing price having was misplaced in that alternate. I occur to agree.
The modular construction of the Osolo unit reinforces that concept of flexibility and communal use that the sedir initially embodied. Impartial backrest parts could be positioned wherever they’re wanted. Modular cushions tile the platform in various configurations. You’ll be able to run a single unit in a compact area or join a number of modules into one steady seating association that stretches the complete size of a wall. The piece adapts to its context relatively than demanding that the room adapt to it, which is strictly what good furnishings ought to do and barely does.
My sincere opinion is that the true achievement right here is visible restraint. The renderings present a deep blue end, a pointy alternative as a result of it amplifies how clear and resolved the geometry really is. The folded metallic edges are easy with out being fussy. The modular backrests carry simply sufficient floor texture to interrupt up what might have simply tipped into one thing flat and institutional. The scattered cushions in orange, tan, and silvery blue add heat with out softening the structural readability beneath them. There’s a stack of books and a espresso mug sitting on the platform, and so they look fully at residence there. That may be probably the most sincere factor a product render can present you.
What I maintain coming again to is how the Osolo Lengthy Seating Unit manages to really feel each acquainted and completely new on the identical time. Culturally, it connects to a seating custom that’s centuries previous. Formally, it seems like one thing from a studio that hasn’t made peace with something standard but. That mixture is genuinely uncommon. Most furnishings that reaches again into cultural historical past for inspiration finally ends up producing a romanticized model of the previous. The Osolo doesn’t do this. The folded metallic physique grounds it firmly in up to date manufacturing and up to date aesthetics. The inspiration is current, but it surely isn’t sporting a fancy dress.
Whether or not the Osolo Lengthy Seating Unit makes it from idea to manufacturing is one thing price keeping track of. Proper now it reads as a really assured, very resolved piece of design considering. Gökçe Nafak is constructing a coherent design language with this collection, and the lengthy seating unit makes a powerful case that language has one thing actual to say.
