Prostoria Strain Easy Chairs by SMPDO

The Prostoria Strain Easy Chair is one of those designs that makes quite complicated engineering look remarkably simple. Designed by Zagreb studio SMPDO and introduced in 2015, its slender profile and distinctive steel frame earned the Strain a Red Dot Design Award in the same year.

The name gives a clue to how it works. Rather than building comfort through a heavy upholstered shell, Strain uses tension: leather is stretched across the backrest structure, the seat is supported by elastic webbing, and a free lumbar cushion moves with the sitter. The result is a chair that looks exceptionally light while providing the comfort expected of a much larger lounge chair.

Look underneath and the construction becomes even more interesting. Slender steel tubes cross and intertwine at the leg junctions, creating both the structural strength and the visual signature carried through the wider Strain collection. It’s the sort of detail that becomes more impressive once you understand what you’re looking at.

That lightness carries through to how the chair sits in a room. Our examples pair grey leather backrests and black steel frames with either bright blue or orange upholstered seats and lumbar cushions. They’re compact enough to sit easily in a room without disappearing into it — equally at home in a reception or breakout space as they are in a living room.

$1,540 each

New RRP $3,000+

Our range of original designer furniture is constantly changing as new pieces arrive from commercial and institutional settings. Enquiries about these chairs or similar designs are always welcome.