The career of Lodz-born designer Tomek Rygalik is an excellent blueprint for the burgeoning emergence of the former Communist Bloc countries into the world of contemporary design. While this phenomenon is already some 20+ years old, designers like Rygalik acknowledge that some vestigial features of the drab Soviet aesthetic have yet to be banished from the collective imaginations of Poland, Romania, Hungary, et al. With this legacy in mind, Rygalik recently directed a workshop series for young designers geared towards synthesizing the aesthetic of communist-era Poland with the contemporary world.

Termo. Designed by Tomek Rygalik.

One of the more auspicious offspring of these “Meblocianka” exercises (the term refers to a modular storage system commonplace in Soviet-era Poland) is Rygalik’s very own “Termo”—a modular seating system for contract and residential use with the singular innovation of a detachable top. Rygalik has divided the system’s components into two basic building blocks: the lower half is a slick polycarbonate shell with the profile of a slightly blocky bathtub, while the upper is comprised of seats, seat backs, or flat tops—each upholstered in rigid foam. The set-up allows easy assembly and re-configuration: the various tops fit snugly into the assorted bottoms, thus encouraging quick conversion from seat to loveseat to table to pouf. Both tops and lower halves are lightweight, which makes it easy for homeowners to re-arrange their living spaces to their heart’s delight (perhaps too easy, always a dangerous prospect for indecisive sorts).

With regard to public spaces, however, the dangers of such portability are manifest, so Rygalik wisely incorporated a semi-permanent option: the shells can be affixed to the floor while the seats can be made non-detachable. Rygalik rightly characterizes Termo as an innovative concept in dual-use seating: “The variety of seat, pouf, and table combinations can be achieved within one product, which can also work well as a separate element of a grouping. This gives architects and users a wide scope of possibilities to create limitless compositions.”