Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA
The remarkable result of a partnership of two design leaders — Landscape Forms and Loll Designs — is Americana Lounge Chair, a furniture design that aims to bring better longevity, elevated visual appeal, and enhanced functionality to a staple timeless piece of outdoor furniture.
Americana Lounge Chair has recently been awarded a 2021 Good Design Award by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.
Like the traditional Adirondack chair, Americana communicates a familiar sense of comfort, relaxation, and appreciation of the outdoors.
Yet unlike its traditional inspiration, Americana’s high-performance materials, refined lines and vibrant color palette make it a better compliment for modern architecture and high-profile outdoor spaces. A celebration of outdoor living, Americana incorporates features designed to comfortably bring more aspects of the day-to-day outside.
Accessories for Americana include a hanger underneath the arm for secure bag or purse storage and an optional tablet arm, providing a wider surface for food and beverages or to serve as a functional work surface.
Americana’s form factor is both wider and taller than a traditional Adirondack to enhance comfort and accessibility, offer a wider range of seating positions, and aid ingress and egress.
Americana prioritizes comfort, aesthetic longevity and enduring structural integrity in the face of even the most trying elements. Americana utilizes UV-resistant post-consumer recycled plastic (HDPE) polymer for the seat, back and arms, providing a long, vibrant, and low-maintenance life.
The rust-proof, commercial grade cast and extruded aluminum supports and under-structure are finished with polyester powdercoating to resist fading and chipping. Americana’s durable HDPE won’t get too hot or cold for a year-round comfortable seating experience.
The innovative combination of post-consumer recycled plastic and extruded aluminum sustainably provide resilience and strength, each material excelling its individual structural role and working with the elements.
The design enables the plastic components to naturally expand and contract in changing temperatures while still maintaining a seamless connection to the metal base for improved durability and longevity.
Americana’s selection of colors is also designed to accentuate different aspects of the natural environment — Leaf Green and Charcoal Gray coexist naturally among organic hues, while Apple Red and Sunset Orange serve as a complementary counterpoint against the blue and green of sky and earth.
Americana importantly brings long life to one of the US’s most widely used plastics, high-density polyethylene (HDPE). Because of its longevity, durability and lack of maintenance, HDPE is used in countless practical applications from food containers and cutting boards to outdoor playground equipment. HDPE is also one of the most recycled and recyclable plastics on earth.
Unfortunately, with such wide usage especially in single-use containers, many HDPE products end up in landfills with wasted potential. Americana is designed to optimize the life of the materials that creates it, keeping HDPE out of landfills and used to its fullest for years.
Americana’s aluminum supports and understructure are finished in a proprietary powdercoat which is completely free of lead, hazardous air pollutants, and volatile organic compounds.
Because Americana is constructed solely with HDPE and aluminum, all scrap material is completely recyclable, and, at the end of its useful lifespan, the chair itself can be completely recycled.
Project: Americana Lounge Chair
Designers: Loll Designs and Landscape Forms
Design Team: Site Li, Loll Designs and Kirt Martin, Landscape Forms
Manufacturer: Landscape Forms
