Industrial designers Mirko Ihrig and Casey Lewis are based in Berlin and Milan, respectively. But that hasn't stopped the two designers, who met while working at fuseproject, from starting up their own design firm called Lotto. One of their projects, Canti, is an experimental chair design that caught my eye:

Image: Louis De Belle & Stefania Zanetti

Image: Louis De Belle & Stefania Zanetti

"Canti's design originates from the idea of constructing a chair from wood when seen as an industrialized material. Timber is often cut into planks to allow for efficient production, transport and use. Canti highlights these qualities with a cantilevered construction, only using planks of solid wood. To add comfort to the bare structure, only the necessary is carved out to create subtle curvature."

Image: Louis De Belle & Stefania Zanetti

Image: Louis De Belle & Stefania Zanetti

My only gripe is that the unforgiving nature of the base requires a dead-flat floor. Were it to go into production, that could be addressed with minimal feet, but I suppose that would detract from the monomaterial nature of the piece.

Image: Louis De Belle & Stefania Zanetti

Image: Louis De Belle & Stefania Zanetti

The project was self-initiated, and the prototype was built by veteran German craftswoman Wiebke Wolkenhauer.