Alice

• Prize
  Honorable Mention in Furniture Design
• Company/Firm
  Youkaïdi
• Designer
  Iannello Steve, Rosina Julien

Alice is a chair made of a flax natural fibre composite, a new sustainable alternative to fibreglass that provides excellent mechanical properties and a low environmental impact, combining one the first domesticated plants to modern developments in material research.

Flax fibre introduces the human warmth of fabric in a field that is highly oriented towards technological performance. The capricious and creased character of fabric is preserved by allowing it to take shape naturally on the external side, keeping that random touch that makes every object unique.

Each flax layer weave is selected for it’s specific structural properties against flexion or torsion in the needed directions. The last layer adds the colour and aesthetics, showcasing that Alice is actually made of cloth.

The flax seat is complemented by a wooden structure using traditional joints, so as to associate two organic and renewable elements.

Bio
Steve Iannello is co-director of Youkaïdi, a design studio from Lausanne, Switzerland, that he co-founded with Julien Rosina in 2009.
He graduated in Woodworking in 2005, and in Industrial and Product Design at the Athenaeum Europe school in 2009.
Steve has been conducting workshops, projet expertises and seminars in various schools, and he has been teaching industrial, furniture and interior design at the Swiss Design Center since 2016.

Other prizes
EESC Design Eleven INVENT! European Product Design Award