Header: Courtesy of Shenzhen Boking Art & Culture Co.
The Water Drop chair, designed by Shenzhen Boking Art & Culture Co., is based on the shape of a single drop of water just as it begins to fall. For the studio, this image connects to ideas of stillness, clarity, and permanence drawn from both Eastern cultural views of water as life-giving and from Plato’s distinction between the changing world of the senses and the unchanging world of ideas.
The Waters Drop chair’s shape follows the outline of a falling drop, with a rounded top that slightly narrows before widening at the base. Made from transparent artificial crystal, the chair lets light pass through it in a way that makes the surface feel almost like a thick layer of water held still.
There’s no upholstery or added elements; the entire object is shaped and finished as one, ensuring that the focus always remains on the material and overall sculptural shape. Within the crystal structure, however, dead branches seem to float, held in place forever as if they were swallowed by water just as it was passing by.
The reference to water is direct, as mentioned above, due to both the shape and the chair’s appearance when viewed from different angles: clear, solid, and self-contained. For designer Daijie Wu, the goal was to almost freeze a single moment in place, and what better element than water to achieve that?
