Like all our models, the cardboard models for the CHESA chair are built on a 1:1 scale. Objectively speaking, there are no compelling reasons to build everything in cardboard. And yet these models have great value for the studio.

While there are the usual obvious arguments such as the ability to read the shapes and proportions, one could also argue that it would be equally possible to make prototypes using appropriate materials. Many things can be 3D printed, milled and painted. We certainly do not avoid these production options; in fact, we embrace them. But I find that those kinds of stand-ins for the final product often become interesting only at a later stage in the process. The real reason for the models in simple cardboard is that they create objects that are somewhere between the initial idea and the final product. They are like halfway marks. They do not yet imitate the final product and yet they are more than just a thought or a sketch. They mark a moment in the process that lies between different worlds. The abstraction of the gray or white cardboard makes it possible to assess many facets that are subsequently lost in the materialized object. I am interested in this state of “not yet being properly in the world”, in this presence that is also an absence. It is not easy to grasp what this really means, but in addition to size and proportion, it is also about something like grace and appearance. It is about evaluating an idea rather than a final product. It is about assessing an intention.