Chair-by-Day Transforms into Table-by-Night
Definitely a chair. No, wait … certainly a table. With a built-in light. Right? Everything about it during the daytime seems to suggest it is a chair: a seating platform and four legs, two of which extend upward to support a backrest. But in this final defining element hides a small secret – an outwardly-invisible recessed lighting fixture that illuminates the surface below, turning it into a simple nighttime table-plus-light.
Spigoli Vivi & Andrea Bartolucci collaborated on this simple white furniture piece-with-a-twist, using minimal means to extend the function of perhaps the most common everyday furnishing a house could have.
An inconspicuous side-mounted power-cord slot switches the light on and off (though a battery-powered alternative might be nice as well, to keep the object mobile). In turn, this little tucked-away lamp is oriented to illuminate whatever is set right below it – perfect for those of us who (intentionally or accidentally) turn our spare chairs into temporary storage spaces for work lunches, keys and other odds or ends.
“Helios- chair and bedside table – Spigoli Vivi is a project born in 2009 of two young designers, Leonardo Fortino and Andrea Bartolucci. Which are found of design; they attend the faculty of industrial design in Rome ‘La Sapienza’. Even if they are from different places, they have same artistic, cultural and technological knowledges to find a linear, lively and artificial style.”
“They want to find shapes that stimulate curiosity and study daily behavior and deeds for making object with whom a man can interact. Simple lines but not banal, looking for a direct and warm style.”
It’s safe to say the Helios chair is anything but banal, as simple as it looks in daylight. It almost feels like it parallels the way a city can transform from day into night, when the neon lights glow and cast shadows to give you a whole new experience.
