How do you reimagine Danish designer Arne Jacobsen’s classic Series 7 chair, known for its sexy hourglass silhouette? Accent it with a basket weave? Coat it in a reflective layer? That’s what three of seven local studios did for the chair’s 60th birthday, by invitation of W. Atelier, dealer of Fritz Hansen, the makers of the chair.

For the weave, Imajin’s Brendon Lim introduced a “slip-on” to contrast with the chair’s sleek surface. To emphasise its versatility in complementing different settings, Colin Seah of Ministry of Design and celebrity designer Peter Tay came up with similar ideas. Both applied mirrored surfaces to the veneer, naming their interpretations Kamaeleon and Anywhere, respectively.

Our favourite is also the most radical, albeit the least practical: a suspended chair named Series 8, 9, 10, 11… (Experiment on Curves vs Light), by Sam Ang and Sal Chua of Grey Canopy. Timber cylindrical rods are hand-pasted on the chair’s surface for a textured surface.

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“Try shining light on it from different angles. The shadows cast will dance and change with the curves,” says Chua. Others in the project include Robert Greg Shand of Robert Greg Shand Architects, Terence Chan of Studio Terre, and Leong Hon Kit and Si Jian Xin of Wynk Collaborative.

7 Architects x Series 7 will be exhibited at the National Design Centre on July 9 and 10, and various venues around Singapore, until the end of the year.