Exploring Form and Function, Keilhauer Unveils Four New Lounge Chairs at
NeoCon

June 10, 2024 (Chicago) – Keilhauer is proud to announce the launch of four new carbon neutral lounge chairs: Abl, Swish, Toob and Dais, debuting today at NeoCon in Chicago. Abl, Swish and Toob are designed by Austrian design studio EOOS, and Dais is designed by Swedish design studio Form Us With Love (FUWL). These bold and unique lounge chairs are four individual characters, all with their own distinct design features, and intended to be singular workplace statement pieces.

“We are excited to present these four modern, sustainable lounge pieces to the commercial design industry at this year’s NeoCon,” says Meghan Sherwin, President of Keilhauer. “With these beautiful lounge chairs, we are proving that carbon neutrality and innovative, refined design can go hand-in-hand. These lounge chairs and their accompanying pieces are intended to make you stop in your tracks when you see them, all designed with the health of our environment in mind.”

Abl is a mid-back lounge chair with an ash base that provides a soft-yet-sculptural sensibility to the workplace lounge. Swaddled by draped arms and a protective curved back, this beautiful lounge chair enables individuality to thrive in the workplace by fostering moments of reflection and focused flow. The Abl lounge chair is accompanied by an optional matching ash-based ottoman that also features the unique draping effect found in the chair’s construction.

“The design of Abl’s shape was inspired by the idea of fabric being draped over two wooden supports,” says EOOS. “There is a gentle softness present in the draped effect of this chair, as if naturally created by gravity, and the ash base allows for just enough rigidity.”

Abl’s armrest fabric drapes over the chair’s wooden legs, achieved by a padded overmolded foam. Another outstanding design feature is the chair’s recessed back, which highlights the shape of the seat and the chair’s overall construction. Abl can be designed with combo cover upholstery, allowing designers to play with textures, patterns and textiles. Both the chair and the ottoman are constructed using FSC-certifed wood, are certified carbon neutral and carry BIFMA LEVEL® 3 and SCS Global Services certifications for Indoor Air Quality at the Indoor Advantage™ Gold level.

Modern yet familiar, Swish breaks the mold of stereotypical office isolation by encouraging deep connection and sparking vibrant social interactions amongst colleagues. This plush, versatile lounge chair is designed to inspire collaboration and conversation.

The slender backrest of the chair works together in perfect harmony with the chair’s ultra-plush seat cushion, modelling the same collaborative energy it seeks to bring out in the workplace. With a striking silhouette and charming, organic shapes, this lounge chair is designed to connect colleagues and create conversation.

One of Swish’s key design details is the way the backrest and seat cushion pieces come together.

“We like to say that the two Swish pieces are in love with each other,” says EOOS. “Where these two pieces meet, there is a subtle squeezing effect – this creates an interesting tension within the chair that adds an intriguing visual element.”

The interior side of Swish’s backrest features an artistic, swooping stitch design that flows with the subtle curving shape of the chair. Like Abl, Swish can be configured in combo cover upholstery, allowing for increased customizability. Swish is available in three different base options: swivel, glides, or a caster-based model that includes a handle at the top of the chair for ease-of-movement. All Swish models are constructed using FSC-certifed wood, are certified carbon neutral and carry BIFMA LEVEL® 3 and SCS Global Services certifications for Indoor Air Quality at the Indoor Advantage™ Gold level.

Performative in essence, Toob holds its own by challenging what we’ve come to expect from a lounge chair. The chair’s thin, airy frame contrasted by its strong geometric elements creates a dynamic and commanding focal point for any room. The lightness and airiness of the chair are grounded by the presence of strong, angular upholstered pieces, which creates a tension to produce a unique silhouette.

“The lines of Toob really carry its volume,” says EOOS. “They are not touching; there is always a little bit of a gap. It’s like you are holding large volume on a very thin sketched line. The beauty of Toob is that it’s telling its story immediately to [the user].”

The Toob lounge chair features cylindrical armrests, the only curved element present within the design. Toob’s seat cushion sits atop a slight metal frame that stands out in contrast to the thick seat and armrests. The arms do not come into contact with the seat back, they are only connected to the chair via the metal supports of the frame. This spacing contributes to the overall lightness of the design.

Toob is part of a collection – the Toob lounge chair is accompanied by an occasional table and a bar stool, which feature similar materials and geometric elements. The Toob occasional table is available in glass, laminate and stone tabletop options, and the Toob bar stool possesses the same square cushion style as the lounge chair. The Toob collection is constructed using FSC-certifed wood, is certified carbon neutral and carries BIFMA LEVEL® 3 and SCS Global Services certifications for Indoor Air Quality at the Indoor Advantage™ Gold level.

From its elegantly simple FSC-certified ash frame, to its distinctive bio-based foam seat, Dais proves that style and sustainability can coexist in harmony. Designed to use as few materials as possible, this is a minimalist chair that provides maximum comfort, providing a design-forward, sustainable seating solution for common areas, office lounges, lobbies and more. Both relaxed and supportive, Dais is constructed without the use of fossil-based materials, offering designers with a seating option that is equally as beautiful as it is beneficial to our planet.

“While designing Dais, we knew we wanted to create a warm and inviting product that could be placed in a wide variety of environments,” says John Löfgren, Co-Founder of FUWL. “This chair contains a nice contrast of maximalism and minimalism – it has a sophisticated mid-century vibe, but we also wanted the chair to have a playful side, which you can see in certain design elements, like its large seat cushion.”

One of Dais’s standout design features is its sculptural bent plywood structure. Artfully designed with precision and ergonomic vision, this striking single piece wraps around the user, doubling as both the armrests and the backrest. The unique, organic aesthetic of the bent wood provides an artistic, visual flair and is a core design highlight. The width of this chair’s arms were purposefully designed to double as both a place to rest and a modified work station, large enough to accommodate note-taking or resting a beverage, phone, or laptop. Additionally, the curvature of Dais’s legs matches the curvature of the chair’s arm corners, creating a clean, continuous profile from arm to floor. Rounding out this design is Dais’s generously thick seat cushion, whose outer edges are lined with a sophisticated piping detail. Dais is constructed using FSC-certifed wood, is certified carbon neutral and carries BIFMA LEVEL® 3 and SCS Global Services certifications for Indoor Air Quality at the Indoor Advantage™ Gold level.

In developing these lounge pieces, Keilhauer took every possible step to reduce carbon emissions, from sustainably sourcing materials and responsible manufacturing, to a carefully planned end-of-life and recyclability plan, all verified by third parties. To eliminate any remaining carbon created during the manufacturing process of these products, Keilhauer invested in third-party verified carbon offset projects.

From their inception, Abl, Swish, Toob and Dais were designed with the wellbeing of the environment in mind. In addition to being third-party certified carbon neutral products, these products reduce the amount of materials required for production by integrating structural parts into the chairs’ and table’s designs. All of these products are constructed with FSC-certified materials, contributing to sustainable forestry practices and ensuring a positive environmental impact. They also all carry BIFMA LEVEL® 3 and SCS Global Services certifications for Indoor Air Quality at the Indoor Advantage™ Gold level.

EOOS is Gernot Bohmann, Martin Bergmann, and Harald Gründl, who studied design together at the Academy of Applied Arts in Vienna. In 1990, they started their first collaboration and then founded EOOS in 1995. They live in Vienna and work in the fields of product, furniture and architectural design. EOOS is named after one of the four sun horses of Greek mythology and stands for their programmatic approach to the field of design. For more information, please visit eoos.com.

Form Us With Love is an international design studio founded in 2005. At the studio’s core lies a process that blends traditional creative practices with a lean, strategic application. The central intention is to evolve with the needs of each project, its place in the market, and the ever-changing needs of real people. For more information, please visit formuswithlove.se.

Founded in 1981, Keilhauer is a privately owned, design-focused contract furniture manufacturer. Keilhauer manufactures seating and tables that makes work more comfortable for all. Keilhauer products are thoughtfully made to support communication and engagement in spaces such as meeting rooms, collaboration areas, lobbies and lunchrooms. Working with world-renowned furniture designers, Keilhauer is internationally recognized for award-winning design, built with extreme craftsmanship, to the highest environmental standards. The company is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. For more information, please visit keilhauer.com.