Benjamin Graindorge | SoftWildSofa

Curated by Constance Rubini

Parisian designer Benjamin Graindorge was inspired by the Hallingdal textile to create the SoftWildSofa. An easy, comfortable, biomorphic upholstered bench, the design allows innumerable seating possibilities, with no clear ‘right’ way to use it.

‘This bench is about adaptation: adaptation to our bodies and to their humors,’ says Benjamin Graindorge, describing the SoftWildSofa as ‘a living being’. Structured like a body, with muscular skin over a skeleton, its stark and minimal wooden frame supports a covering ‘like a pliant, comfortable symbiont that thrives by grafting itself onto a wild, arid landscape’.

The SoftWildSofa is a world unto itself, says the designer. ‘It is a finite form outside of any scale. It draws the gaze without catching the eye at any specific point. To achieve total comfort, we must give in to it, no longer knowing whether the scale is that of a landscape, a body, a hand, or even the scale of an epidermis. We are lost, and therefore obliged to accept that the only reason for valuing this object is the comfort that it offers.’