Q-Couch
If you like your furniture sleek, modular, and multi-colored, than the Q-Couch by Belgium’s Frederik van Heereveld may catch your eye. After a stint with the timeless Gerard Van DeBerg and accolades from the International Design Community (winning the Elle Decoration International Design Award in 06), Van Heereveld founded FEEK, designer and manufacturer of “functional, comfortable, and contemporary furniture” (emphasis Van Heereveld’s).
Q-Couch. Designed by Frederik van Heereveld. Manufactured by Feek.
It’s a quirky name for a quirky company, grounded, as they are, in a philosophy of “functionality, futurism, and flexibility.” This last attribute may explain Van Heereveld’s consuming interest in EPP (Expanded Polypropylene), which he calls the “perfect material” for his aesthetic: “still only used in lightweight car parts and packaging, it is the ideal crossover with design furniture!”
Like some of the other extruded “-ene” products explored herein (see BASF and the Penta Lamp), EPP is an engineered plastic foam that is durable, resilient, and pleasing to the touch. Though similar in weight and texture to its cousin, Expanded Polystyrene-the ubiquitous white packaging foam-EPP is considerably stronger (no wonder they use it for energy absorption and impact protection in automobiles). Further, it’s temperature, light, and water resistant; easily recyclable; and non-toxic. Finally-and this is just a bonus at no extra cost to you-it repels petrol and other common household chemicals. Wow! No wonder it’s suitable indoors or out, in the living room or the shop, on land or on sea (just waiting for Van Heereveld to make a boat from the stuff).
The merits of EPP notwithstanding, what really sells the Q is its phosphorescent modularity. Since the modules weigh next to nothing, and since they snap together with the pressure of a finger, there’s no end to its many-striped incarnations, according to FEEK’s website: “it can be Q-ued in all lengths, shapes, and colors in any way you want.” Of infinite appeal (and equally infinite peril) to closet indecisives, the Q-Couch stretches the horizons of spatial arrangement and room design.
Coming soon (says Van Heereveld): “extra features” to include bends and arm rests, for yet more creative permutations.
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