Simon Legald: Form

The Danish designer Simon Legald is the designer of Form for Normann Copenhagen, a series of tables and chairs developed around an innovative and sleek mounting solution.

Simon Legald’s project forNormann Copenhagen started from the idea of making a chair one day that would stand alone as an integrated entirety; a chair where even the smallest details were taken into consideration.

From a functional perspective you are limited in how you can design a chair. It must have legs, a seat and a backrest. For the design of Form, it was essential for Legald to work with the integration of the frame and shell in a new way, and therefore how he could solve this in the most elegant way. After analysing hundreds of chair designs from different decades, the project started with an idea for a chair, but rather developed into a range of furniture.

Simon Legald has been ambitious in his design of Form and in this has challenged the traditional type of construction seen in a chair. The goal was to create a chair with a cohesive and unified look as well as a natural integration between seat and base. In order to achieve this, Normann Copenhagen has developed an innovative and sleek mounting solution consisting of four moulded plastic connectors, which fit perfectly to the seat of the shell. This almost makes it appear as though the legs are growing out of the seat.

Since the initial idea, it has taken 3 years to develop the Form series. During the process angles have been corrected, curves have been adjusted, colours have been tweaked and more than 20 prototypes with various angles and material thicknesses have been tested in order to find the right solutions and achieve the best comfort possible. The end result is an uncompromising design, which blends craftsmanship with design history. In addition, the chair is totally unique.

The goal was also to create a flexible design that could be adapted to countless types of bases, including the ones that will emerge in the future. The easiest and most common way to achieve this is by making several holes underneath the shell to fit the different bases. The connection principle developed especially for the Form Chair makes it possible to mount different types of bases in the same holes. As a result Form is a homogenous and aesthetic design regardless from which angle you look at the chair.

Form is a contemporary shell chair made of moulded plastic. The chair comes with or without armrests and as a barstool in two different heights. The shells are all created of polypropylene and have been moulded using one single injection. That way you achieve an extremely strong construction with the finest and clearest surface possible. As an additional detail, the shells go through an extra finishing phase, removing every visible trace of where the plastic has been injected into the mould.

The Form concept was Simon Legald’s graduation project at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in the summer of 2012. Since then, the series has been expanded with a dining table in two different sizes, which is the perfect companion for the Form Chairs.

The Form Table has a tabletop covered with linoleum and the edges, cross bars, and legs are made of solid, FSC certified American oak. Highly qualified furniture craftsmen make the wooden frames. The legs and cross bars are sanded by hand after they have been cut. After this, the parts are assembled using the moulded connectors. The tabletop is made using medium-density fireboard (MDF). Solid oak profiles are glued on to create the curved edges of the table. A layer of laminate is then used to cover the tabletop in order to increase its strength and ensure an even surface, so it doesn’t begin to bulge over a long period of time. Finally, the table is finished with a layer of linoleum cut by hand for an exact fit.