Nicolas Zanoni turns industrial material into sculptural furniture
The Strat Chair by Nicolas Zanoni emerges as a study in transformation, repurposing industrial insulation panels into a sculptural seat that hovers between rigidity and softness.
Constructed from stacked XPS sheets thermally fused into a unified form, the chair holds a visual language closer to erosion or sedimentation than to standardized furniture.
Its irregular curves and tactile presence push against the expectations of construction material, carrying an unexpected sense of movement frozen into matter.
Zanoni approaches design less as a process of resolution than as a terrain of experimentation. By discarding molds and frameworks, he lets material behavior dictate the evolution of form.
The Strat Chair is the outcome of intuitive gestures, each cut and fusion carried by instinct rather than by a pre-drawn plan.
The result is a chair that is at once functional and ambiguous, an object capable of supporting the body while evoking the unfinished textures of geological time.
Born in Paris in 1995 to Argentinian heritage, Zanoni has developed a practice that resists conventional categories.
His education at La Cambre in Brussels gave him an industrial design background, yet it is his dedication to material improvisation that defines his identity.
He works with chance encounters, accidental reactions, and hand-driven manipulations, creating pieces that oscillate between object and sculpture.
The Strat Chair fits seamlessly within this ethos, where form is not imposed but discovered through contact with matter.
Nicolas Zanoni’s work is not defined by practicality but by poetry. The Strat Chair is not a neutral piece of furniture but an inquiry into perception: how can something derived from construction sites become delicate, even organic in presence.
Its hand-shaped layers leave visible traces of process, almost like geological strata, while its soft outlines contradict the hardness of the original panels.
It points toward the hidden sensibility within industrial matter and questions the roles objects are expected to play in daily life.
All images courtesy of Nicolas Zanoni, shared with permission
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