"In a world of loveless volume manufacturing, ODEChair displays soul by reflecting the care and honesty with which they have been conceived and crafted." ODEChair is a collection of contemporary, sustainable chairs that are handcrafted by Jolyon Yates. Launched in 2008, ODEChair pays homage to the art of individually created designs that are more like works of art than manufactured furniture. "An ODE is a lyrical poem that pays respect to that which inspires it"

Stingray Birch. Designed by Jolyon Yates.

Jolyon Yates studied Industrial Design at Sheffield Hallam University and then Automotive Styling at the Royal College of Art in London. Later on he was invited to Style Porshe in Stuttgart where he worked on internal and external projects. In 1998 he returned to New Zealand where after a few years of teaching Design at Massey University. he began design work at Bakewell-White Yacht Design.

Ocean Rocker. Designed by Jolyon Yates.

Ocean Rocker. Designed by Jolyon Yates.

Stingray Birch and Savannah Rocker. Designed by Jolyon Yates.

Yates’s wealth of varied experience shows in the design of the ODEChair collection, where the photography of the pieces accentuates the curves of the chairs much like photography of automobiles. The geometry of the chairs feels derived from nature in the way Gaudi created forms from natural structural studies. The Ocean Rocker mimics the rolling of ocean waves in the same way the Leaf Stool is a stop-motion model of a curling leaf. The Stingray bench is the most humorous in the line of sensual formal studies. Each piece is inspired by a different natural occurrence, making them all unique, elegant and cohesive like a composition in nature.