Affordable, versatile and responsible: with Bell Chair, Konstantin Grcic and Magis have developed a contemporary monobloc chair made entirely from recycled polypropylene.
The recycled polypropylene is obtained from the waste generated by Magis’ own furniture production and from that of the local car industry. The patented material excludes almost all “virgin or new” materials and can be recycled again 100% after use. This way, Bell Chair forms an almost closed material cycle.
"Our aim was to develop a high-quality chair with the bare minimum of material. This target was important to us for ecological reasons," says Konstantin Grcic, "but also from a commercial point of view."
The chair weighs just 2.7 kilograms (less than 6 pounds), making it half as light as average plastic chairs. This fact is testament to the use of less material and causes less energy consumption during production. The key to this saving lies in the ingenious shell shape of the chair. Its bulbous geometry is not only structurally strong, it also makes the chair extraordinarily comfortable and visually appealing.
Grcic and Magis also aimed to create this chair at an affordable price. The cost of production relies heavily on the amount of time it takes to make a pieces and, with Bell Chair, the manufacturing process takes less than 1 minute.
"We realized that there was an opportunity and a need to address certain issues surrounding the project," Grcic adds.
The responsibility of the design does not end with the product itself. Magis developed a logistics concept for Bell Chair to save additional resources. This entails a specially-designed reusable delivery pallet, which can stack up to 24 chairs. As a result, less packaging material is used, and the vertical stack reduces the footprint during transportation. At the same time the pallet doubles up as store display for retail partners and is made from the same recycled plastic as the chair.
The chair is available for $105 USD (retail) and comes in three colors – Sunrise, High Noon and Midnight – and can now be ordered through the Magis network and the dedicated website: www.bell-chair.com