Jamie McLellan’s Plane Lounge Chair for Resident merges sculpture with furniture, distilling mass and geometry into a quiet force of design built from solid timber and engineered elegance.
Built entirely from solid timber, the chair is both grounded and monolithic—more installation than seating at first glance. But this architectural heft is a sleight of hand: what appears immutable is, in fact, remarkably inhabitable. The moment one sits, a softened dialogue emerges between the body and the form. The Plane Lounge Chair doesn’t seduce with upholstery or ornament; instead, it commands space with clarity and restraint.
Rooted in the language of McLellan’s broader Plane collection, the chair draws from industrial cues—its foundational legs read more like load-bearing beams than traditional furniture supports. There’s no visual trickery: the seat is cantilevered yet thick, asserting its own weight. The joinery is so seamless it vanishes. One sees planes and volumes rather than components. The backrest, a single upright slab, is subtly angled to comfort without compromising the object’s geometry.
McLellan likens the chair’s silhouette to the sculptures of Richard Serra, evoking not just aesthetic mass but psychological presence. And yet, there’s no arrogance here—only a reverent simplicity. Designed in New Zealand and hewn with unapologetic honesty, the Plane Lounge Chair achieves what many contemporary design pieces merely flirt with: the quiet force of an object that speaks fluently in the language of both art and utility.
