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In translucent latex and razor-thin steel, the Riga studio’s chaise for Rotterdam Design Biennale asks an unfashionable question: what if rest required your full attention?
Daydreamer hovers just above the floor on eight stainless-steel legs, spread wide and left in full view. Under the seat, the structure stays exposed: brackets, straps, and thin metal members run the length of the piece, closer to a chassis than a hidden frame. The side view is one controlled curve—head end lifted, a dip through the middle, then a rise—while the top is all surface: thick latex pads in a pale, butter-yellow tone, stitched into asymmetrical segments that swell at the shoulders and hips and tighten through the torso. onlyonly.studio describes the latex as “translucent,” but in the concrete-floor photographs it reads mostly opaque, with a soft sheen that catches light along seams and edges.
The lounger comes from Riga-based onlyonly.studio, led by Harijs Vucens and Anna Līva Traumane. It debuted at Rotterdam Design Biennale 2025, responding to the theme “What’s Real is Unfamiliar,” and later appeared at Collectible Brussels (Tour & Taxis), presented by Spazio Viruly Gallery. The studio specifies natural, plant-based latex (from Hevea trees) and notes collaboration with latex technologists at ALMOTEX, alongside metal fabricators; the result keeps its parts readable—latex above, stainless steel below—without trying to smooth the mechanics away.
The segmentation is where Daydreamer stops being a generic chaise. The pads don’t blend into one broad cushion; they separate the body into zones, pushing arms outward, guiding legs, and holding the back in a position that feels chosen rather than accidental. Left and right don’t match, so there’s no easy symmetry to sink into. Vucens and Traumane frame the project as a pushback against constant motion—“In today’s society, people are in perpetual motion… The ability to be present… is disappearing”—and the chair turns that line into posture. They connect it to yoga nidra, and the reference fits: somewhere between sitting and lying down, stillness managed by support points. The outline looks aerodynamic, like something drawn to move, but the experience is the opposite. Up close, the details keep that tension alive: cuffs of thickened latex at the edges, seams that stay prominent, and steel members that look almost too thin until you see how many of them share the load.
