An inflated aluminium chair that is extremely light and stable

Oskar Zieta has developed the Ultraleggera chair, which weighs less than two kilograms, by blowing up aluminium sheets

Spotted: In 1957, Italian architect Gio Ponti developed the Superleggera, a super-lightweight chair, which he created by stripping down a traditional Ligurian design to its bare essentials. Inspired by Ponti, Polish designer Oskar Zieta of Zieta Studio has developed his own version of the ultra-light chair, naming it Ultraleggera. Zieta’s design is made entirely of aluminium sheets that have been welded together and blown up. Over several years, every aspect of the chair was optimised for lightness and strength, and now the Ultraleggera weighs only 1.66 kilograms.

The strength and stability of the Ultraleggera can be owed to a production process known as FiDU, which has been developed by Zieta. The method involves cutting a two-dimensional outline of the chair’s frame from two aluminium sheets, which are then welded together and inflated with compressed air. This then creates an h-shaped unit consisting of two legs and half of the backrest, which is then duplicated and welded together with a laser-cut seat and back panels to form the chair. Compared to traditional production processes, the FiDU method conserves both energy and material, and to top it off, the Ultraleggera is made entirely from recyclable material.

Earlier this year, the Ultraleggera was awarded the top prize in the product category at the Materialica Design and Technology Awards.

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