Crusinallo, Italy
When Dutch architect Ben van Berkel is not designing a skyscraper in China or football stadium in Korea, he has shifted his imagination time to design a new kid’s chair for Alessi SpA.
The new UNS07 Doraff Chair won a recent 2020 Good Design® Award from The Chicago Athenaeum.
Ben van Berkel, UNStudio’s founder and principal architect, said that his firm’s first venture into children’s products had opened up “a whole new world of possibilities.”
“When you design a product for adults, you concentrate on its functionality and how to couple that with its materiality, aesthetic and spatial qualities,” said van Berkel.
“But something else happens when you design for children: different, more playful ideas start to rise to the surface because you start to approach the design through the mind of a child,” he explained.
The Doraff is a hybrid chair, table and toy that combines the shapes of a dog and a giraffe into a versatile, multifunctional object that stimulates the child’s imagination during play. This robust object is made of 100% recyclable thermoplastic resin and its lightweight makes it easy to flip over to make use of its differently sized surfaces.
The Alessi Doraff children’s chair—this is a semi-gloss, safe sculptured curved shape which can be used for play and seating.
The head is flat, so it can be used as a tabletop for reading, drawing, playing and eating.
The Doraff, which comes in three colors combines the shape of two animals: a dog and a giraffe.
In one position the Doraff chair is shaped like a dog and flipped over, its shaped like a giraffe!
The Doraff is designed to meet the needs of children, to stimulate the fundamental path along which active play develops their creativity and independence.
The chair is designed to ensure complete stability when used as a seat by children and suitable for outdoor use.
The chair is washable and manufactured in 100% recyclable thermoplastic resin.
“For me it is important that the products we design for children have some kind of playful or educational functionality, and that they are related to the interior environment in some way,” said van Berkel.
Alessi UNS07 Doraff Chair
Project: Alessi UNS07 Doraff Chair
Architects: Ben van Berkel UN Studio
Manufacturer: Alessi SpA
Photographers: Inga Powilleit and Matteo Imbriani
