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The sofa is reimagined as a reconfigurable hammock in this concept presented at Stockholm Design Week by electronics brand Samsung and design studio Form Us With Love.
Shift is a prototype textile “watching platform” that can change form depending on the number of people using it and the number of screens in use in the room.
Form Us With Love developed the concept after Samsung Nordic challenged the Stockholm-based studio to speculate how the sofa of the future will respond to the changing role of the television.
“The TV has developed a lot over the past 10 years, and not only the TV itself but what we use it for,” said Magnus Per Nilsson, Nordic product manager at Samsung.
“You can use the TV for video calls with your relatives, you can use it for gaming, you can use it for workouts,” he said.
“We wanted to explore what this means for the future of furniture. The process is there to trigger our imagination about the ways consumers might use our products.”
The Shift prototype, which is on show at Form Us With Love’s Stockholm studio, is suspended from the walls of a makeshift room like a large hammock.
The designers have also created a series of models and visualisations that show how the textile could be attached to a frame, or tensioned to create different seating positions that include a traditional sofa shape.
Karin Blomberg, design manager at Form Us With Love, said the aim was to create a design more flexible and space-efficient than a static sofa.
This responds to the idea that living environments are becoming increasingly multifunctional, with other screens being used besides the television.
“We have more screens in our homes than we had 10 years ago, so we’ll probably have even more in the next 10,” said Blomberg.
“If you look at the sofa today, it’s still a very traditional setup,” she continued.
“It isn’t really fit for families where everyone might be watching something on a different device, but equally gathered on the sofa. It also takes up a lot of square metres when you’re not using it.”
Shift is designed with the idea you could move it between rooms, or pack it away when not in use.
“What we want to achieve with this is the flexibility to take a sofa away or reconfigure it,” Blomberg added.
“The sofa forms its shape around you, not the other way around.”
The prototype uses significantly less materials than the traditional sofa, which is predominantly made from foam.
It consists of textile ribbons that are stitched together in a pattern that resembles basket weave. The designers haven’t specified what this textile will be made from.
“We don’t know what materials we will have in the future, so the idea needed to be adaptable for new materials,” said Blomberg.
The protoype combines black and white with vibrant shades of blue and orange, while material samples showcase other possible colourways and patterns.
Form Us With Love often launches projects during Stockholm Design Week, with past examples including mix-it-yourself cosmetics brand Forgo and the Testing Grounds prototype testing.
Shift is on show at the studio’s flexible new studio space, which opened its doors for the first time during Stockholm Design Week in September 2022.
The designers hopes the design will “inspire the industry to think outside the box when it comes to future sofa design”.
“We’re not launching a product. But maybe we can inspire the industry to think about reducing the amount of material in furniture and making it smarter,” added Form Us With Love CEO and co-founder Jonas Pettersson.
Shift is on show at the Form Us With Love studio from 7 to 10 February 2023 as part of Stockholm Design Week. Browse our digital guide to the festival or visit Dezeen Events Guide for more architecture and design events taking place around the world.
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