It's tough not to be impressed with Netherlands-based designer Robert van Embricqs' "Rising" series of furniture, comprised of a stool, chair and table:
The Rising Chair was the first of the series. Van Embricqs explains how he went from sheet to seat:
The foundation of any chair is the flat surface you'll eventually sit down on. Using this notion as a starting point, I made several cuts in the flat surface and pulled up the different beam-like strands of cut surface. This created the preliminary but already distinct features of any chair: back, seat and legs. The rhythm of the wooden beams gives the chair an organic shape. The cuts are most visible when the chair is still down. But at that stage of the construction, I still didn't know what shape the chair would take in the end. This was determined by the various arches of the wooden beams the chair is made of. Folding the chair into its definitive form, as a creator, I felt a special connection to the material I was working with.
