When a product designer’s eye for structure fuses with the eye for fabrics of a textile designer, a chair like Olive is built. Thanks to the two Israeli designers – Adi Tasa and Yoav Avinoam – behind the project, the Olive chair is a three-dimensional figure with an accompanying three-dimensional upholstery to match.

The Olive Chair by Yoav Avinoam and Adi Tasa Explores Soft, Tactile Upholstery.

Olive. Designed by Yoav Avinoam and Adi Tasa.

With the intention of building a piece of furniture that investigates the way in which a fabric and an upholstery can be bonded to one another across the expanses of a large armchair, Olive was created using a molded polyester-based textile. Using heat as it catalyst for the bonding, the chair’s exterior layer is then shaped into a plush, almost toad-like skin that, after I asked around about people’s impressions of it, was synonymously tied to the look and coloring of what was referred to as “a mattress thing” (a description I simply had to repeat).

Although still in its prototype phase, the Olive chair has been praised for it’s use of the visually stimulating texture. Avinoam and Tasa are continuing their work together on other projects, combining their separate skill sets and eye for design to the furniture world.  As Tasa said in an interview about the Olive chair specifically, it’s intention makes it “something you constantly want to touch and feel comfortable in”.

The thick, bumpy fabric that covers the massive Olive armchair by the talented Israeli design team of Yoav Avinoam and Adi Tasa brings those who sit within its heavily tactile feel into a dream-like state.

About the Designer: Yoav Avinoam is an Israeli designer who had an early passion for cars that was transformed into design later in life. After graduating from Bezalel in 2009 where he made a graduation project that consisted of a stool and coffee table, he was awarded the Massimo Martini design award and attended exhibitions around the world. Now, he has his own studio and continues to pursue furniture design alongside textile designer Adi Tasa.