Polish designer Oskar Zieta, the founder of Zieta Studio, has developed an incredibly light chair, called Ultraleggera, that can hold up to 1,200 kg (about 2,645 lb). Interestingly, the chair is made by welding together aluminum sheets and blowing them up as if they were balloons.
Oskar decided to challenge the Italian architect Gio Ponti’s Superleggera chair from 1957, which was basically a traditional Ligurian design stripped down to its bare essentials. The Superleggera chair is made from light and stable ash wood, weighing at 1.7Kg. Oskar’s version comprises entirely of aluminum and weighs only 1.66Kg.
While the Ultraleggera is lighter than Ponti’s Supperlegga, it’s still heavier than Massimiliano Della Monaca’s Estrema chair, which is officially the world’s most lightweight chair, weighing at 0.617Kg.
Oskar said:
Over a period of several years, every radius and every perforation of the Ultraleggera chair was optimized for lightness and strength. The final design is the result of material and technological optimization, as well as strength tests – first virtually simulated, and then carried out in the real world.
The chair gets its stability and strength from how the metal is formed, in a process invented by Zieta called FiDU. Oskar has previously made PLOPP stools for Hay using FiDU, as seen in the image below.
The process involves cutting a two-dimensional outline of the chair’s frame from two aluminum sheets, which are welded together and inflated with compressed air. This forms an h-shaped piece, comprising two legs and half of the backrest, which is then replicated and soldered together with laser-cut aluminum seat and back panels to create the Ultraleggera chair.
Oskar explained:
Due to the slight undulations of the material surface, the deformation process creates a three-dimensional, stable bionic structure that is surprisingly durable. As one of the few design studios working with sheet metal, we respect the ‘freedom of deformation’ of this material. We do not force it into the matrix, and we do not want to completely control its deformation. It is in this process that unique structures with a high strength coefficient are created.
Oskar claims the FiDU method is more eco-friendly than standard production processes because it conserves energy and material. Once the Ultraleggera chair has reached the end of its life cycle, it can be melted down and formed into something new since it’s made entirely from a single, fully recyclable material.
Studio Zieta’s Ultraleggera chair was awarded the top prize in the ‘Product’ category at the 18th Materialica Design and Technology Awards 2020.
