The Italian design firm Sawaya & Moroni often commissions new furniture pieces by guest designers who are primarily artists or architects. Many design firms follow this strategy, but for some reason most of the really original design commissions come out of Sawaya & Moroni. I’m not sure why. I’m not a fan of all their work (especially the Zaha Hadid benches), but they take chances. What I find interesting about these two pieces in particular is that they’re tipping over into the realm of art and fantasy, or even the weird, without seeming jokey or childish (like Karim Rashid or Alessi) or too arch. Above is by Marcello Morandini, Italian designer and architect, Chair, 1991, from here. Below is “Sit-Sat” by artist/architect Massimiliano Fuksas (video here) with Doriana Mandrelli, who works for Alessi. I’m really not a fan of Alessi, but nearly 20 years later this object still seems quite arresting. I wouldn’t want either of these at home, but I’d like to see them in a public space.

“Sit-Sat” is a giant seating sculpture made of painted multilayered plywood. Photo from dezeen. “The piece “invites you to find new ways of sitting,” according to Sawaya & Moroni, who compare it to an ancient eroded rock, sacred Aboriginal mountains and Dogun earth dwellings.”

This is the ur-seating platform. Think how many people would gather here at a party, and even Le Chat prefers it. This is from a house in St. Kilda, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia. Why is Australian design so cool now? If you’ve ever seen Vogue Living Australia you know what I mean. From desire to inspire.

Photos via inside (photo above is at insideinside.tumblr.com), one of the best curated tumblelogs on tumblr. Well-named, also. And see its sister site, outside, which is equally good.

My apologies for not knowing the name of the photographers, owners or designers behind these photos. It’s tumblr, so all bets are off. It’s a zone of 100% copyright infringement and rampant decontextualization. I feel a little funny reposting anything I find there, for that reason.

Above, the 1970s modern two-level platform in painter Frank Stella’s loft, from the book Inside Today’s Home. Below, a recent photo of the renovated 1950s conversation pit in the Number 31 Hotel in Dublin.

Maybe it’s because I grew up around an extremely hip artist aunt whose 60s/70s handmade house had a seating platform in it, but I am mourning the disappearance of the freeform seating arrangement. And apparently I am not alone. The seating platform and conversation pit of the postwar period (sort of the inverse of each other but amounting to the same thing) probably have their origins in the interior design of the Middle East or North Africa. Eventually they spread to regions within that sphere of influence, such as Greece, Turkey and Spain. In the 50s, 60s and 70s conversations pits and raised seating areas looked variously Eastern, hippie, shagadelic, or modernist, but the effect was the same. Architectural design influences mood and behaviour, and these seating styles inherently invite a completely different form of socializing. And a different quantity of it. As a kid at my aunt’s I would spend all day on her padded window seat platform, which was large enough for about 6 people (maybe 4 stretched out) and which was covered with a huge, natural pale brown Greek flokati and pillows, far more comfortable than any couch or chair. Now when I visit her we still invariably congregate there. Of the two styles I think I actually prefer the seating platform, because it allows you to be even more freeform and informal than most sunken pits, and because it’s cheaper to build. Below, seating platform/window seat in British Columbia; further below, seating platform in the Standard Hotel in LA, by ChimayBleue on Flickr.

Above, three photos of perhaps the most famous modern conversation pit of all: it’s in Eero Saarinen’s Miller House in Columbus, Indiana, built in 1957. The top two photos are recent; the last photo is how it originally looked.

Above, the Edersheim apartment by architect Paul Rudolph, 1970. Most Paul Rudolph houses featured a conversation pit or equivalent seating arrangement. Below is a related but sort of rustic space age option: suspended sitting and sleeping pods in architect Bruce Goff’s experimental Bavinger House (1950-55; photo by Lizzy Brooks is from here). Below that is another Bruce Goff building, the Nicol House of 1965, photo by Robert McLaughlin.

Teen conversation pit, above; below, the early 70s living/dining room of sculptor Sydney Butche – it appeared in House Beautiful in 1972.

Below, some historical precedents:

The seating area above, an “estrado,” is from Cervantes’ 16th C house, now the Museo Casa Cervantes:

Estrado is the name given to the reception room which is characteristically taken up in part by the a dais ( the estrado itself) covered with rugs where normally the women sat in Moorish fashion on cushions following the Spanish custom of Islamic origin which foreign visitors found very surprising although it in Spain it survived practically until the Bourbon era.

There are numerous testimonies to the use of the estrado, both in literature and in painting in Spain and in the inventories which document household contents. It was normally the most richly decorated room in the house and the one used for receiving visitors .

Above, the Twin Kiosk / Apartments of the Crown Prince (Çifte Kasırlar / Veliahd Dairesi), via onethirteen. Below, the low seating platform (at right) on Crete is typical of many traditional Greek houses, though some of them are more comfortably padded than this one.

If building code (or cost) prohibits conversation pits and sunken living rooms, then raised seating platforms are a great cheap substitute – for that matter, make a raise platform with a recessed area within it. If you have an appetite for more images, see here and here, and there are more photos below. And if you’ve ever made one of these, man, we’d like to see it.

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Of course the High Line park didn’t open on time for our New York trip – the first phase now opens June 15 - but at least we got to see all the frantic final activity from our hotel window. UPDATE June 6: This had seemed like a great urban park idea, and it would have made a very beautiful promenade for New York, but as it turns out its use is semi-private. Apparently when full public funding couldn’t be secured to produce a fully public park, private funders stepped in and this has meant that the park, a new design on the top of the old elevated railway, will sometimes be reserved for private use. You’ll need a wristband to enter, apparently, and sections can be arbitrarily closed off. (See discussion on gothamist, who also used our photos.) The park’s controlled use is unfortunate because politics aside, the design looks good. [End update.] It seems there’s been only minimal intervention on the el; the tracks remain, and only gravel, pavers and benches have been added. Some of the plants in the final design are the same indigenous species that have been occupying the long-overgrown line for decades. The benches are nicely designed – they ramp up from walkway level. It rained this morning but now it’s sunny and men are painting over graffiti on the adjacent buildings. There are more photos on the High Line website (including the black and white photo below). The Standard Hotel in the Meatpacking District actually straddles the High Line, and from there you get a very good view of a portion of the new park. There’s a beautiful view of what it used to look like here and one by Timothy Schenk on Flickr:

Just a few blocks up the road from our studio is the workshop of Vancouver’s Molo Design. You have probably seen their magic accordioning softseating or their softwall room dividers which are now in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in NYC. Several times a week Molo’s unmarked shopfront morphs into a fairly fantastical environment while they test or photograph new pieces, and we always stop to look as we go by. You can see the shopfront window below. Molo’s pieces are pretty environmentally friendly, hold up well and are some of the most beautiful room dividers we’ve ever seen, in white and now in kraft paper as well. The kraft paper walls are here, and Molo also does beautiful double-walled glassware.