POP CHAIR

Designing a chair for all

Nick Pearson along with his father Terry developed and commercialised a revolutionary manufacturing technique used to mould thick section plastic products named gas assisted moulding. Together they developed a business selling this equipment to brands around the world, providing them the ability to manufacture their products to a higher quality and with reduced mouldng cycle times. Upon sale of the business Nick decided to employ the technology in a product he had long desired to produce: a mass-produced monobloc plastic chair.

Nick combined this knowledge of gas assisted moulding with an experienced industrial design team to develop a stackable chair with a strong yet familiar aesthetic at an affordable price point. The air moulding process creates hollow sections within the legs – reducing the amount of material used to create a strong and super-lightweight product that weighs just 2.5 kilos. Using less plastic offers benefits from both a financial and environmental perspective.

The democratically designed POP Chair has proved to be a great success over the years which is a testament to the wide variety of projects it has been selected for, from hospitals (NHS), supermarkets (ASDA), schools (RSA ACADEMY), universities (UCL) and galleries (TATE) as well internationally from Uganda to California the POP chair could be considered as somewhat of contemporary design classic.