NIÖ chair

2017
Team Members - Laura Amaya, Moisés Hernández, Manuel Ortiz

NIÖ is the result of the symbiosis between design and material, between industry and craftsmanship, between the past and the present. In the same way, the key element of this chair lies in its material and its history behind it - the reed. The reed is a vegetable fiber that grows on the shores of the Fúquene Lagoon (the fox's lair in the Muisca indigenous culture), which local artisans mainly use to develop baskets and rugs. However, we wanted to take the ancestral techniques of the locals further and use the material and integrate it into the industry. This is how NIÖ (meaning nest in the Muisca culture) was born - the first chair in the world based on reed that takes up the story and shapes it in the future of furniture in Colombia. The concept of a nest was used to make a chair which encompassed the history of Fúquene and one which could transmit to the user that it is an object where one can feel comfortable and protected, like the nest of a fox.