What did you have in mind?
Trade terms for professionals and design studios
Emeco prints one sentence about Za that reads like a test: it should be an object a person will unconsciously choose to sit on. Most seating is specified the other way round, by telling people where to go. Here the stool has to earn its occupant without a word, which is a demanding thing to ask of a designer stool in aluminium and explains why this one is drawn so plainly.
The plainness is deliberate. Design Naoto Fukasawa, 2021; built by hand in Hanover, Pennsylvania, in recycled aluminium, as what the maker calls a simple stool that can be used anywhere, indoors and out. In Emeco's own images it stands on a balcony beside a bicycle, round a courtyard table and along a timber counter. Put one by the high table of an office break area and the sentence is on trial by mid-morning.
Anywhere means a kitchen, a counter, a terrace, and the family is sized for all of them: Za Mini, Za Small Stool, Za Counter Stool and Za Barstool, low to high, every one aluminium throughout. The finishes are hand-brushed, hand-polished, which is the one for indoors, or powder-coated in six colours; a seat pad in merino wool felt or leather is there for any of them. La Mercanti asks where in the office people already stop and perch before it suggests a height, because that is the spot where Emeco's sentence is put to the test.
Tell us which finishes you'd like to assess
In Hanover, Pennsylvania, by hand. Emeco was founded there in 1944 and its factory stands at 805 West Elm Avenue; the country of origin, USA, is declared on the packaging of every stool. The maker's own short description of Za ends on that fact: handcrafted in Hanover. For anyone writing a specification this keeps the origin line short: one maker, one factory, one address.
Emeco introduces it as the low stool that joins the family and gives it three roles in one line: low seating, a side table or a footrest. It stands 35 cm (13 3/4 in) high on a footprint of 45 × 45 cm (17 7/8 in square) and weighs 1.81 kg (4 lb), light enough to be carried from one role to the next. When you plan a lounge corner, decide whether you are counting it as a seat or as a surface; the answer changes the quantity.
The fact sheet for the Za stools lists ANSI/BIFMA X5.1 for strength and stability, under the heading Certified. In practice that hands the specifier a named standard to write into the schedule, where an adjective such as robust would be worth nothing. La Mercanti passes the line on exactly as Emeco words it, so that it can be quoted without anyone paraphrasing a test reference.
Nothing. Emeco states that Za requires no assembly and is delivered fully assembled, one or two stools to a box. The outer carton is recycled cardboard; inside there is recycled cardboard, recycled plastic and PE foam, and the packing material is 100% recyclable. On the day, that leaves two jobs: opening the boxes and deciding where the cardboard goes. La Mercanti asks beforehand where the stools are to stand, so they go straight there.
Yes, in two of its three finishes. Emeco approves Za for outdoor use hand-brushed, which is clear anodised, or powder-coated; the hand-polished stool is the finish for indoors. The standard glides are hard polycarbonate and are meant for general use, outdoors included, while the optional felt glides are for hard floors inside. So settle where the stool will live before settling how it looks: the terrace narrows the finish to two.
A Za enquiry is short when five things are fixed before it is sent: height, finish, colour, pad and glides. Each has a small number of answers at Emeco, listed here in the order that saves a second round.
Za comes in four heights, and on this stool the seat is the top: 35 cm (13 3/4 in) for the Mini, 48 cm (18 3/4 in) for the Small Stool, 64 cm (25 in) for the Counter Stool, 76 cm (30 in) for the Barstool. Note the height of the surface it will stand at and put the two numbers side by side.
Emeco offers hand-brushed aluminium, which is clear anodised and matt, hand-polished aluminium, or a powder coat. The brushed and the powder-coated stools are suitable outdoors; the polished one is the indoor finish. Decide this before colour, because it settles where the stool may go.
If the answer is powder coat, there are six colours, from the quiet White Grey and Dark Grey to Coral Orange, by way of Green, Light Blue and Sweater Brown. Each carries an NCS code, Dark Grey being NCS S 7502-B, for instance. Write the name and the code together and nobody has to match a shade from a screen.
The Za pad measures 28 × 28 cm (11 × 11 in), the size of the seat. It comes in 100% merino wool felt, in six colours that answer the six powder coats, or in Russet, a vegetable-tanned leather that takes on a patina with use. State the material and the number of pads, which need not equal the number of stools.
Hard polycarbonate glides are standard and suit general use, outdoors as well. For hard floors indoors Emeco offers felt glides as an option. Say which floor each group of stools will stand on; the glides are wearing parts and can be replaced later, so the decision can be revisited.
