Styleture

The Styleture editorial team is always on the lookout for creative furniture designs; especially ones that make use of recycled materials that many would consider trash. Bike Furniture Design (BFD), based out of Marquette, Michigan on the shores of Lake Superior, is a design and manufacturing studio specializing in contemporary/modern furniture made primarily from recycled steel and aluminum bicycle rims, handlebars and frames.

BFD founder Andy Gregg, working within the vernacular of classic modern furniture design, has continued to refine his craft of making comfortable and durable bike-based furniture since 1990. Since they created the original Bike Chair, BFD has grown to include a wide-ranging collection of high-quality tables, bar stools, loveseats, and more chairs. Some designs, in addition to utilizing the bicycle, also utilize components from other transportation industries. BFD has created furniture designs from train and automobile windows – used as tabletops – and surplus automotive seatbelt webbing for seating upholstery. BFD upholstery options are wide ranging and include: leather, rubber, cork, clear and colored acrylic, and vinyl. So what made Gregg decide to make furniture out of bikes? He’s been influenced by his years spent in bike shops and on bikes. BFD has been featured in a variety of publications including Momentum Magazine.

As huge fans of Gregg’s work, the Styleture editorial team picked out a few of his pieces that particularly captured our imagination:

Modulus Side Table

Modulus Side Table

The Modulus Side Table is made with strategically bent and welded chrome-plated bicycle rims. The table is topped with a choice of either glass or acrylic.

Vector Lounge Chair

Vector Lounge Chair

The Vector Series Lounge Chair frame is constructed of aluminum bicycle rims. This chair is available with custom padded vinyl cushions in a choice of colors. The rims that serve as arm rests on this chair can be fitted with your favorite mountain bike tires or with inner-tubes only. They can also be fitted with a simple pad. Read the rest of this entry »

Murakami Chair designed by Rochus Jacob

Maybe your grandma has a rocking chair. Maybe she sits on it and crotchets, or reads magazines about crocheting. Or maybe not. But the fact is, rocking chairs ain’t just for grandma anymore. The Murakami Chair offers a modern twist on the age-old furniture piece – it’s a rocker with a built-in OLED (organic light-emitting diode) lamp that’s powered by the rocking of the chair. That’s right – rock this puppy and you get to be a human power plant.

Designed by Rochus Jacob, an award winning product designer based out of New York City with essential interaction and strategy experience, the Murakami Chair brilliantly harnesses the kinetic energy that is created by rocking the chair and utilizes an advanced nano-dynamo technology built into the skids of the chair to power the reading lamp above the rocker’s head. The OLEDs require very little juice to power and if you happen to want to read without rocking, no worries; rock a while and the battery pack will store enough so you can read later while sitting still. Perhaps best of all, the chair looks sleek and cool, and it will never embarrass you. How did such an idea come about? “I was looking for opportunities to generate energy through activities we naturally do,” said Jacob. “The final result is a rocking chair that enables the user to experience production and consumption of electricity in a gentle and rewarding way.” Jacob also stated that in the future, “To have a drastic reduction of consumption the big challenge will be to make consuming less feel like getting more.”

A bit more about Jacob: He holds a master’s degree in product design and design research from the University of Art and Design in Offenbach, Germany. He gained international working experience at HTC Taiwan, One & Co. San Francisco andIDEO Munich by working with clients such as Microsoft, Samsung, P&G, Nike, Steelcase and Google. He uses a holistic and user-oriented approach that is dedicated to developing meaningful service, interaction and products that have a positive impact on peoples’ lives. Undoubtedly, his Murakami Chair embodies his noble work philosophy.