A short history of flexible design

Over the course of history, from the age of the Egyptians up to that of Napoleon, a folding chair has always been seen as an object of status and beauty. In recent times this focus has shifted. This is a pity; especially in today’s world the concept of folding has so much to offer!

A folding chair not only saves valuable floor space and makes moving a breeze, more importantly it allows you to sit down wherever you like. The beach, the park, you name it! Add to that the fact that it’s easy to send by mail, and thus drastically reducing CO2 emissions when transported efficiently in bulk, and you can see why in a modern world foldable furniture is as relevant as it ever was.

Keeping this in mind and being inspired by folded paper sculptures, I folded a tiny, elegant, paper scale model of a chair. Even though it was just a simple cut-out from a single sheet of paper, it was surprisingly strong. And even better: it didn’t look like anything I’d ever seen before!

Early 2009, I and fellow industrial designer Tom Schouten founded our company. We called it Flux, referring to change and the words flexible and luxury. Since then, we have put all our energy into turning this small paper model into our first fully-fledged flexible design: the Flux Chair.

Our goal is to create a new generation of furniture and associated living items; so stay tuned for more flexible designs from Flux!

Douwe Jacobs

Founder/Inventor of Flux