Would you hold it terribly against me if I said I was rather spun at the prospect of the Spun Chair? Too bad for you if you did, because that probably means you’re the kind of spoil-sport who could never fully enjoy the centrifugal delights offered by designer Thomas Heatherwick’s rotation-moulded polyethylene outdoor chair. Of course, we all know that 3rings’ readers embrace life and A&D innovations with equal aplomb, so chances are good that you—like each and every one of the 30 some attendees at last fall’s London Design Festival who got to sample Spun on the spacious outdoor deck of Southbank Center Square—would enjoy being spun just the same.

Spun Chair. Designed by Thomas Heatherwick for Magis

Spun is Good Clean Fun in a Rotating Chair

Front and center at the aforementioned event was no less than Heatherwick himself, much at ease in casual dress, draped back into the comfy contours of this spinning top of a low chair. The founder and director of Heatherwick studio is accustomed to projects of more ambitious scope, like the Rolling Bridge in Paddington London, “a pedestrian footbridge that opens by rolling into a ball.” Far from this achievement dwarfing the aspirations of Spun, however, I see a complementary thread therein. Indeed, if we can espy a theme within these two projects, it would be one of dynamism in movement and intriguing transformation. For what could be more transformative than taking the typically static notion of a chair and quite literally turning it inside out and upside down? Spun does just that, reminding us, in the process, that sometimes it just feels good to spin interminably round and round.

About the Manufacturer: The pronounced presence of Magis on the international A&D scene is perhaps rivaled only by the infamy of the company’s routine collaborators: Marc Newson, Konstantin Grcic, Ron Arad, Naoto Fukasawa, among others. The immense cache of that lineup has enabled Magis to sustain what they call “good intellectual capital… excellent designers, a good design team, and an extraordinary supply chain.” The formula has worked for some 35 years, helping Magis make a significant and ongoing contribution to contemporary A&D. Some of the firm’s iconic pieces include Andries and Hiroko van Onck’s Step, Stefano Giovannoni’s Bombo, and Jasper Morrison’s Air-Chair.