Cirro by Xander Bremer is a cantilevered lounge chair made entirely from custom laminated cherry plywood, with only two pieces joined to form the whole.
Roughly 70 years after the Eames Lounge Chair (LCW) was designed and produced, Cirro seeks to offer a 21st century response to that timeless classic. The design takes the organic shapes and new contours that were introduced to wood chairs with the LCW design, and mixes that inspiration with modern vacuum-forming technology to create even more ambitious contours and volumes. Cirro is the result of an exploration of using a flat, 2D material to form curves and contours that create an expanded, three-dimensional volume. This results in a form that contrasts the planar nature of the material, but also a round, inviting volume to ensconce the sitter.
The feeling of an offered comfort is expressed further in the cantilevered seat, which arches up from the ground to meet the sitter, and softly yielding to the weight of their body. Cirro’s cantilevered perch creates a sense of volume and puffy sensation upon sitting. These qualities are inspirations for the name. Cirro is a prefix for a family of high-altitude clouds that extend in thin wisps, much like the thin planes of material arc upwards in the shape of the chair.
The design was refined at full scale, using the vacuum-forming buck to prototype mock-ups of the plywood contours. The buck constrained the necessary geometries for the chair, such as the seat height, seat angle, back angle, and arm positions. But the characteristics of the plywood determined the arcs formed between these positions, resulting in forms that are expressive of the material’s properties. The lamination took place in two stages, first the bottom, then the top. Each edge was carefully sanded by hand, to create contours that are as gratifying to the hand as they are to the eye.
