Zanotta’s Koochy sofa by Karim Rashid is one of those pieces that defies expectations. Often working against an aesthetic of sharp lines and abrupt angles, many of Rashid’s designs embrace fluidity, incorporating variable contours and asymmetrical shapes. The result can be difficult to love, since we often seem to require wholeness and symmetry in design, and since Rashid’s vision challenges widely-held notions about the functionality of furniture.

Koochy sofa. Designed by Karim Rashid. Manufactured by Zanotta.

The designer is not alone, though, in his efforts to popularize furniture whose function changes through its physical space. Cassina’s Aspen Sofa, for example, is a piece that makes different demands on the user depending on which part of the sofa he’s using. If his designs are speaking for him, Rashid seems to believe that this should be a more acceped state of affairs, that we should break away from geometricity and use the shapes we see in the natural world to help create interior space.

Koochy argues this point quite persuasively. A piece that, at first glance, might remind you of a certain 70s psychedelia (think a profusion of oranges and pinks and Peter Frampton harmonizing from the eight track), the Koochy is, in fact, thoroughly contemporary: in line with manufacturer Zanotta’s commitment to “the advanced use of multiple materials such as metals (aluminium alloys, stainless steel, brass, bronze,...) plastics, glass, marble and granite, wood, textiles and leather,” Koochy boasts a steel frame wrapped in self-extinguishing polyurethane foam upholstery, a fixed internal nylon cover, and a removable exterior in fabric or leather. In short, Zanotta and Rashid have used all tools at their disposal to assure that the sofa works well-that they’ve met the engineering challenges associated with the innovative design.

Like most design visionaries, Rashid works in several disciplines. He’s an artist (several of his works can be seen at the New York and San Francisco Museums of Modern Art), a lighting designer, and an architect; and he brings his notions of fluidity with him wherever he goes (check out the Morimoto Restaurant in Philadelphia and the Semiramis in Athens). One look at his work, and you’ll appreciate that he seems to see the world through the eyes of an aquatic, rather than terrestrial, creature. This is to say that the shapes of the octopus, or even the amoeba-primeval creatures of any and all kinds-influence his vision.

How to describe the Koochy, then? Changeable, undulating, unpredictable, demanding. The sofa challenges notions of how furniture should appear fixed in space: it embodies movement; it looks like it might quietly slink away at any moment, born on the rhythms of the sea. But don’t let all this keep you from finding a place for it in your interiors. Art Piece? Of course. Functional furnishing that helps push design philosophy in new directions? That too. Comfy Sofa for lounging? For sharing space with your beloved in all kinds of new and interesting ways? Absolutely.