In somewhat of a departure for the lofty French designer, Philippe Starck’s new range of furniture is produced in collaboration with a company called TOG — which prides itself on making all of its designs open source.
In total, TOG is launching 21 families of products — from bar tables to stackable chairs — designed by some big names: among them Sebastian Bergne, Sam Hecht + Kim Colin, Nicola Rapetti and Philippe Starck himself. Starck’s contributions include chairs and tables, featuring strong geometric shapes which offer a wonderful blank canvas for strong block colours and wacky reimaginings.
Which is rather the point. TOG’s tagline — “all creators together” — provides the inspiration for the entire range. The purpose here is to provide an open source, online platform where users can be involved in the creative process, taking control of parts of the design, customising the furniture, and sharing their ideas. It’s like Linux for armchairs. Kind of.
It’s hit and miss. Some pieces look wonderful — we particularly love the knitted Starck cover on the Joa Sekoya stool above, for instance — while there’s no escaping the fact that a yellow chair can only take on so many interpretations of yellow before it gets a little… samey. But that, also, is the point: open source means you can do what the hell you like. And that, if nothing else, should be heartily celebrated. [TOG via Design Boom]