Designing a cafe chair looks simple until you try it. Keiji Takeuchi talks us through the thinking behind Lotti — from a small painted prototype inspired by his daughters’ classrooms, to the quiet details that deliver comfort.
In his own words, “Designing cafes could be an easy thing, but at the same time is a very complicated thing. It’s so normal for everyone to go to a cafe and experience a cafe. So if we do something very striking, or something that is very expressive, for some markets it might work. But I think, as a user, I prefer to go somewhere that is more calm and authentic as a cafe experience.”
On where Lotti began
“I take my daughter to school, and I used to see this chair — it’s small, but proportionally the tubes are large. Then I thought, maybe it’s charming to have this whole scale enlarged. So we focused really on this kind of authenticity of form, and a kind of typology of cafe.
…I look at manga, or Japanese cartoons, and I learn a lot about how they pull their sense out — like Miyazaki’s, for example, slicing cheese. The cheese looks more like cheese than real cheese does. That’s something I admire, and I’d love to bring into design.”
Keiji built a little painted prototype, and it was really elegant — a lot of character.
On designing for comfort
“Every different body size, body shape, gender, has their own subjectivity for what comfort is. Typically for a male, for example, we have more muscle in the back, so we want the backrest slightly more open — then you feel this hugging of the backrest towards your back, and you feel comfortable.
But if you let a female sit in the same posture, they tend to hit the spine first, and then it’s not comfortable for them. So we need to balance what is comfortable for everyone.
In general, when we’re designing the seats — say a plywood version and a plastic version — if we make the shape completely the same, the plywood is normally more slippery than the plastic. Not always, but depending on the finish. So we need a bit more dip in the plywood, to catch you — otherwise, when you sit right back and start to slouch, you slide off. Plastic has a bit more give.
Designing chairs is very deep, and comfort is almost a philosophy. I think it’s endless.”
