What if a chair was mostly made of air?
That’s where the idea started for Paul Crofts, the designer behind Isomi’s new Knit One Chair. It’s an unusual question, but one that gets to the heart of how he approaches design: as a way to strip things back until only what’s essential remains.
When Crofts began working with Isomi, the brief wasn’t about aesthetics or trend. It was about responsibility.
‘It began with a question,’ he says. ‘How can we make a lounge chair that uses less, ships better, and lasts longer? The contract market has a serious waste problem, and we didn’t want to contribute to it.’
The result is a product that reconsiders not just how furniture looks, but how it’s made, shipped, and eventually unmade.
In most lounge chairs, softness comes at a cost. Layers of foam, fabric, and glue make comfort synonymous with complexity — and almost impossible to recycle. Once assembled, those materials are bound together for good.
Crofts and Isomi wanted to see what would happen if they rethought that logic from the ground up. The answer came through 3D knitting — a method still shily used in furniture, but one that offered both structure and freedom.
‘We were inspired by the potential of 3D knitting — its elegance, efficiency, and zero-waste credentials,’ says Crofts. ‘Traditionally used in task chairs, we saw an opportunity to reimagine it in a lounge context.’
A 3D-knitted textile can be shaped directly from yarn without offcuts or adhesives. In Knit One, the knit forms the entire body of the chair — the support, the surface, and the tactile experience — stretched over a thin metal frame that holds everything in tension.
It’s a simple construction that doesn’t pretend to be anything else. ‘The ribbed detailing nods to classic stitched furniture,’ Crofts explains, ‘while the overall design celebrates transparency and structure.’
The fabric comes from Camira, a textile manufacturer based in the north of England. Their SEAQUAL® Collection is made from post-consumer plastic waste — roughly 10% marine-sourced, 90% land-sourced — and uses up to 35 recycled bottles per metre.
For Crofts, working with Camira wasn’t about marketing an ‘eco’ fabric. It was about testing a supply chain that could genuinely support circular design — a refreshing approach that I deeply appreciate. It’s exciting to see designers resist the urge for absolute claims and instead engage in genuine investigation, tracing materials and manufacturing all the way through. That kind of curiosity feels like the starting point for significant change.
‘Knit One is made from almost entirely air and 3D-knitted textile,’ he says. ‘The fabric can be replaced at any time to extend the chair’s life, and at the end of life, the chair can be fully recycled.’ That replaceability is key. Instead of being bonded together, the fabric and frame can part ways easily — one sent back to the textile recycler, the other to metal recovery. Repair becomes routine rather than exceptional.
‘3D knitting is a game changer,’ Crofts says. ‘It’s zero waste — no offcuts, no glue, no foam. It lets us create complex shapes and rich textures in a single material.’
The frame’s design also tackles a major environmental blind spot in furniture: transport. Made from a lightweight metal that can be flat-packed, Knit One ships more efficiently and can be assembled locally, reducing its carbon footprint..
This approach doesn’t rely on futuristic materials or speculative recycling technologies. It simply uses what’s available — with efficiency.
With Knit One, the knitted textile is visibly stretched over its frame. The ribs aren’t concealed; they’re part of the design language. Georgia Carr, Marketing Coordinator at Isomi, neatly sums this up by saying: ‘Knit One celebrates its structure instead of hiding it.’
Crofts also describes the design as a celebration of transparency and structure. To me, transparency is celebrated on several levels, from its research and production phases, all the way to the final product, and even its second life options.
That principle — showing how something is made — connects to a broader shift in design culture. Sustainability isn’t just about new materials; it’s also about new aesthetics. The look of circularity is honesty: visible joints, replaceable parts, a material story that isn’t airbrushed.
For every designer pursuing better systems, there’s a client asking how much it costs. Sustainable design is rarely the cheapest path, but Crofts sees that as potential for growth rather than a barrier. ‘The biggest challenge is making sustainable materials commercially viable,’ he admits. ‘they’re not always the cheapest option, but we see that as a creative opportunity.;
He’s also noticed a shift in the market. Clients, particularly in the contract sector, are starting to look beyond appearance and comfort toward accountability — proof that the materials and processes behind a product hold up to scrutiny. ‘Clients today want more than just good design — they want accountable design,’ Crofts says.
That word — accountable — defines much of what Knit One represents. It’s not claiming to be perfect, but it shows its workings. It invites inspection and takes on the responsibility for the product’s impact on the environment.
Western Lounge furniture design often equates comfort with volume — deep padding, dense foam, hidden frames. This chair asks whether comfort can come from lightness instead.
When users first encounter it, they often expect a harder surface, but the knit gives under pressure, flexing with the body. Although I haven’t had a try yet, from my research, I imagine it feels different from a traditional upholstered seat — less enveloping, more responsive.
That’s partly why Crofts sees the project as a test rather than a finished statement. It explores how far you can go before comfort changes meaning, and how perception might evolve alongside sustainable design.
‘There’s a shift towards more honest, pared-back aesthetics,’ he says, ‘and that aligns perfectly with sustainable thinking.’ Comfort, then, becomes not just a physical quality but an ethical one — how it feels to sit with the knowledge that something was made efficiently, thoughtfully, and transparently.
Knit One isn’t designed to be radical for the sake of it. It’s designed to demonstrate what can be achieved when waste reduction and material logic lead the design process.
If every contract chair on the market adopted just one of these principles — replaceable fabric, flat-pack shipping, no adhesives — the impact would be substantial. And that’s where Knit One finds its significance. It doesn’t shout about sustainability; it measures it, tests it, and leaves room for others to build on it.
The chair may look simple, but behind that simplicity is a complex question that won’t go away anytime soon:
What does it really mean for design to use less, last longer, and still feel good?
Project Details
Author: Nina Purton