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Red Dot issues thousands of awards a year. Best of the Best is the tier above them, given to the few pieces a jury treats as definitive, and in 2013 Saya received it. What was judged is unusually simple — a design chair reduced to essentials: a plywood shell in sliced oak veneer, offered bare or with a seat cushion, above three possible bases — four legs in the same oak-veneered plywood, four legs in chromed or powder-coated steel, or a steel sled. A bar stool version keeps the sled. There is no colour chart to work through and no mechanism to explain: the collection asks for one decision about what goes under the shell, then stops. Arper describes the result as a mark left in a space, and the jury seems to have read it the same way. The decision, once taken, is worth writing down properly — that part La Mercanti puts in writing, code by code.
Collection: Saya — chair and bar stool; shell in plywood with sliced oak veneer finish, bare or with seat cushion
Designer: Lievore Altherr Molina, 2012
Producer: Arper
Versions: chair on four-leg plywood base with oak veneer finish · chair on four-leg base in chromed or powder-coated steel · chair on chromed or powder-coated steel sled base · bar stool on steel sled base, height 65 cm (25.6 in) and 75 cm (29.5 in)
Item codes: 3700, 3711, 3701 (chairs) · 3703, 3713 (stools)
Cushion upholstery: fabric, leather or coated fabric, applied to the seat
Awards: Red Dot Best of the Best (2013), ADI Design Index (2013), Interior Innovation Award (2014)
Intended use (EN 16139, non-domestic seating): level L1 general use — office buildings, showrooms, public halls, restaurants, canteens, banks, bars · level L2 extreme use — night clubs, police stations, sport changing rooms, prisons, barracks
Environmental certification: Arper's documentation refers to the UL 2818 GREENGUARD certification for low chemical emissions and asks that the list of certified products be confirmed with the producer
Care: wood with water and well-diluted neutral soap, soft cloth, never commercial stain removers; chromed, anodised or painted metal without abrasives, acids or bleach; fabrics vacuumed at low suction; leather kept away from direct sunlight and heat sources
Correct use: as declared by the producer, including periodic checks on the tightness of fastenings
End of life: separate the components by material type
Uses: dining and meeting chair, bar stool, home office, contract, collaborative work, lounge, hospitality, restaurants and domestic interiors
Tell us which finishes you'd like to assess
Five steps that decide the base from the table, not from the catalogue.
