A First Glance at a Unique Black Beauty of a Chair: Orev

Designer:
Baulbek
Project:
Orev chair
Photography:
Marc Buckner
Words:
Caroline Meeusen

Orev is an ingenious minimal chair created by the Australian industrial designer Arian Berisa, the creative mind and hands behind studio Baulbek. Due to the limited used materials and structural angles, the low-sitting chair has an ergonomic seating style and is genius in its simplicity.

Baulbek is the identity and studio name under which Arian creates his works. Here, he’s not limited by design genres be it furniture, fashion, sculpture, art, etc. “I gravitate towards all design and like to merge different worlds to get a unique outcome in style,” he says. With his style being both complex and minimal, Arian focuses on functionality and proportion through the contrasting of materials and colors. He’s inspired by everything and anything, but names esoteric literature, fashion, and automotive design in an engineered sense as his main sources. It is also no wonder that Arian admires absolute icons in furniture design such as Pierre Paul and Poul Kjaerholm.

As Arian points out, chairs were and are the most iconic forms in the world of furniture, and there are already a lot of them. “So, I wanted to create something different yet functional which is always the main objective when starting a design,” he notes. Being made of a powder-coated steel frame skeleton and a Textilene fabric sling, the structure of the chair was perfect to create an ergonomic seating style since there are no crossbars at the top and bottom of the sling. There are only five crossbars on the rear of the chair which structurally allow it to have the angled floating effect. The textile is an engineered outdoor furniture fabric that is very strong and adds a sculptural aesthetic to the piece. The ergonomic aspect is confirmed by the way the sling molds to the human body when seated, like a hammock. “I drew inspiration from a GT3 race car which has a low center of gravity seating position whilst also in Japanese culture Tatami rooms use a low ground level seating style. I personally believe it allows you to absorb more of your surroundings from a lower perspective making you feel more inclusive and balanced,” the designer explains. He describes Orev as a mix between a beach chair and an indoor designer chair.

Besides the shape, the pure black color also makes quite a statement. This, as well as the name Orev, is a reference to a raven. As mentioned before, Arian is namely fascinated by esoteric literature and he draws inspiration from that world. Hence the name for the chair is Hebrew for raven. This bird has a dualistic and mystical nature in this kind of literature, reflected in the two used materials of opposite strengths coming together. The name Orev is simple, yet unique and bold, just like the chair it names.