Interiors · New design
Vitra Bascule: A Lounge Chair Tailored Like a Jacket
Studio Πand Vitra cut a loose fabric cover over a hidden tilt mechanism. The result reclines almost flat and does without glued parts and conventional foam.
A lounge chair usually gets its comfort from glue and foam: blocks cut to shape, bonded to a frame, covered as tightly as possible. Bascule, the new lounge chair from Vitra, goes the other way. It was developed with the Berlin design duo Studio Πand is meant to feel like an embrace while questioning the established way upholstered furniture is made.
The name is French for seesaw, and it describes the chair honestly. A tilt mechanism sits hidden beneath the padding and the cover, and Vitra's seat mechanism adjusts automatically to the weight of whoever sits down. The chair follows the body from an upright position to a deeply reclined, almost horizontal one.
Tailoring instead of tension
The most visible decision is the cover. Instead of a fabric stretched over every curve, Bascule wears a generously cut cover that drapes over the structure like a jacket. Lisa Ertel and Anne-Sophie Oberkrome took the idea from fashion, where certain cuts exist precisely so that a garment moves with the body and is easy to put on.
To emphasise the unique properties of Bascule's materials, we borrowed tailoring techniques from the world of fashion.
Studio Œ
That looseness is not decoration. A chair that travels this far between sitting and lying needs a surface that can move with it, and the folds of the fabric become part of the design language rather than a flaw to be smoothed away.
What it is made of
According to Vitra, the focus is on recyclable materials, detachable connections and an honest approach to their natural properties, rather than glued components and conventional PU foam. The structure is a powder-coated tubular steel frame, with the back covered in tensioned fabric. The back cushion is a chamber cushion filled with PET fibres made from 100 per cent post-industrial waste, and the armrests are filled the same way. Seat and neck cushion use a recyclable polyurethane called V-Foam.
The neck cushion can be raised by 6 centimetres, which takes the chair to a total height of 1,125 millimetres. The four-star swivel base is die-cast aluminium, powder-coated or blasted, with a seat height of 380 or 430 millimetres. There is also a solid oak base, lacquered, made from oak grown in Croatia.
Two designers, one ligature
Lisa Ertel and Anne-Sophie Oberkrome were both born in 1990 in Germany and began working together while studying product design at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design. In 2021 they founded Studio Πin Berlin; the Πis a ligature of the initials of their surnames. They have worked with Vitra since 2025.
The family and the fabrics
Bascule comes as a Highback with ottoman, a Lowback, a Highback with bench and as a bench on its own. Covers are offered in a wide range of colours and in duo tone versions, with one shade for the inner and another for the outer face of the chair. The fabrics include Volo, Dumet, Iroko 2, Savana, Nubia, Reed, Cento and Credo.
For a room, that matters more than it sounds. A lounge chair is usually the largest single surface after the sofa, and a two tone cover lets it pick up the wall and the floor at the same time.
