"Good design is honest. Good design is unobtrusive. Good design is long-lasting. Good design is consistent in every detail. Good design is environmentally friendly. And last but not least, good design is as little design as possible". Outlined in 1970, some of the 10 principles relating to good design by Dieter Rams perfectly suit the series Shell - chair + table - designed by the British duo Jay Barber and Edward Osgerby. Presented in 2000 in a super-limited edition of only 30 pieces, after 20 years Shell is now reissued by Isokon Plus, the brand founded in 1931 by Jack Pritchard and recently acquired by Very Good & Proper (VG&P). Fascinated by the formal and structural possibilities of folded sheet material, Barber & Osgerby made various attempts, working with a thin paper model and pushing to the technical limit both physical and visual lightness, found where the components join together. The chair is superlight and resistant, made in moulded birch plywood. The table, which calls to mind the one in plywood designed by Marcel Breuer for Isokon in 1936, is made with only 5 components, glued together, and is characterised by a top in laminate, flexible enough to self-adjust even when the floor is not level.
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