Cantilever Rocker

The shape reads as an armchair before it reads as a rocker. The seat curves down into the base and the base curves back again, so the movement comes from the geometry of the shell rather than from a separate mechanism. There is nothing to grease and nothing to tighten; the chair rocks because its underside is a shallow arc, and it settles because the arc is shallow. The rhythm is slow enough to read as breathing rather than rocking, which is why it does not disturb a room.

Molding a chair of this depth in one piece takes a tool with a long draw and a careful cooling cycle. The wall is thinner under the seat and thicker at the arm, which is where a sitter's hands rest and where the chair is lifted. The matte surface is not a coating: the color is in the material, so wear appears as a slow softening rather than as a scratch through to another color.

Outdoors, the chair belongs on a covered porch; indoors it needs a little floor behind it. It is the piece in the collection that people try once and then ask about the base, because the movement is unexpected and the comfort is not. It is also the chair that most often follows a sitter home from a hotel lobby.