by Brianna Crandall — September 18, 2013—The Chipman collection marks the most recent addition to Landscape Forms’ Terrace Life group of products created to enhance high-design, intimate outdoor social spaces.
“Design professionals know Landscape Forms as a manufacturer of site furniture for streetscapes, parks and campuses,” explains company president Richard Heriford. “Now we are going to places we haven’t been before with furniture by award-winning architects and landscape architects designed specifically for terraces, rooftop gardens and other private and protected spaces. With Terrace Life we’re creating new modern classics.”
Designed by landscape architect Robert Chipman, the new collection features a cast aluminum table and chair of “stunning” sculptural form conceived for more intimate social spaces.
The inspiration for the Chipman chair is said to explain its elegant, organic form. A mountain climber as well as a landscape architect and site furniture designer, Robert Chipman finds poetry in the way nature shapes the landscape. “The orogenic and glacial processes in the Sierra Nevada Mountains have created amazing monolithic granite surfaces with smoothly sculpted curves and aretes. These shapes, especially in the Yosemite high country of Tuolumne, were highly informative to the chair’s form,” the designer explains.
Chipman worked closely with Landscape Forms’ engineers using an innovative digital approach, which integrated 3D modeling, stereolithographic printing, hand sculpting, digital re-scanning and final solid 3D modeling. The end result reveals a meticulous resolution of form and detail, the company points out.
In addition to the lightweight (16 lbs.) cast aluminum chair, with or without arms, the Chipman Collection includes a 45″ round table in dining and lounge heights. Delicate in scale and proportion, they are ideal for small group interactions or for a private tête-à-tête in protected social spaces. Chairs stack and both chairs and tables are movable, so users can arrange them to suit the situation or the mood. In their consummate refinement these pieces contribute to the special ambience of high-profile social spaces.
Kirt Martin, vice president of design and marketing at Landscape Forms, says, “This is a truly exciting product for our company because of the caliber of the design and the precision of execution. The Chipman chair has graceful curves, seamless transitions and a timely edge that makes it a new classic. This is world-class work, competitive at the highest level.”
The Chipman chair, made of a one-piece cast seat and back with seamlessly welded-on cast legs and arms, is a model of casting and finishing expertise, says the company. The table features a flat aluminum top encircled by a tapered cast rim, and is supported by an inverted cone-shaped cast aluminum stem connected to cast aluminum feet. Chair and table are finished with Landscape Forms proprietary Pangard II HAPS, VOC, lead-free polyester powdercoat. Aluminum used in manufacture contains 100% recycled content material.
Founded in 1969, Landscape Forms is an industry leader in integrated collections of high-design site furniture and advanced LED lighting. The company’s U.S. headquarters and manufacturing facility is located in Kalamazoo, Michigan, with sales offices around the world. Landscape Forms collaborates with renowned industrial designers and consultancies, landscape architects, and architects to design and develop integrated collections of products that address emerging needs and help create a sense of place.
Landscape Forms has an installed base of products around the world. Clients include municipalities; transit centers; corporate, college and healthcare campuses; and brand leaders such as Boeing, Cisco Systems, Disney, Sprint, American Airlines, Herman Miller and Nike. The company was recently named by the Wall Street Journal as one of the Top 15 Small Workplaces in the U.S. For more information, see the Landscape Forms ad on FMLink.
