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Design story

Layers Cloud Chair: when the textile becomes the chair

Textile usually arrives after a chair has a body. Layers Cloud Chair reverses that expectation. Its repeated coloured layers become the volume itself, allowing the surface to reveal how the object grows.

Written and reviewed by PatinaHall2 minutes readPublished 25 October 2026

Many thin coloured horizontal textile-like layers form a rounded low chair body.
PatinaHall editorial reconstruction. It is not a documentary photograph. The visible layered body explains textile becoming volume. The image does not count 545 layers, certify internal support or reproduce the earlier aluminium chair.
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Key facts & takeaways

At a glance

Subject
Layers Cloud Chair
Entry
Design story
Last reviewed
25 October 2026
Designed
2013documented

Three things to remember

  1. Richard Hutten’s archive dates the project to 2013.
  2. Kvadrat presented the Divina project in Milan in 2014.
  3. The textile forms the body rather than ordinary upholstery over a shell.

Begin with the edge of the cloth

A fabric surface usually asks us to feel its face. Layers Cloud Chair asks us to look at its edge. Repeated cut layers create fine horizontal bands that follow a rounded seating form, making colour visible across the depth of the object.

Kvadrat describes 545 layers and nearly 100 colours in Hutten’s Divina project.2 These quantities explain this particular experiment’s intensity. They are not a recipe for every chair that shares a cloud-like outline.

Give the material the whole volume

The change is more than unusual upholstery. Instead of wrapping an existing chair with textile, the layers become the visible body. The relationship between one contour and the next gives rounded parts a stepped, almost topographical rhythm.

Hutten’s archive connects the project with his earlier aluminium Cloud Chair while describing a different material exploration.1 Keeping the two apart makes the transformation more interesting: a familiar formal idea can be reconsidered when another material takes responsibility for the volume.

Repeated coloured contours stack into a rounded body.
Original PatinaHall schematic, not to scale. Edges of successive textile layers can build a visible volume. The contours are neither a counted stack nor a cutting template.

Colour becomes something to move around

The designer archive gives 2013, while Kvadrat places the work in its 2014 Milan Divina presentation.12 Those dates record different moments in the project’s life.

The finished encounter is unusually generous. At a distance the chair reads as a colourful rounded body; closer attention finds layer after layer. Textile becomes simultaneously a material, a record of repetition and a way to draw a soft-looking volume in space.

Research notesEvidence, connections and limits

The 2013 design archive and 2014 presentation are distinct. Kvadrat’s account supplies 545 layers and nearly 100 colours for this project, not a family-wide rule. The earlier aluminium Cloud Chair is separate; no exact weight, waste reduction or hidden structure is inferred.

Evidence map

Connected subjects and evidence

Reviewed facts

  • Designed 2013documented

    Hutten’s archive dates the project to 2013; Kvadrat places its Divina presentation in Milan in 2014. These dates identify different project moments.

    Reviewed 25 October 2026 by PatinaHall editorial.
    • Source 1Project heading2013 and project explanation
    • Source 2Project description, Divina2014 context

Reviewed connections

  • Layers Cloud Chairdesigned byRichard Huttendocumented

    Richard Hutten designed Layers Cloud Chair. Kvadrat supplied the Divina textile project account, including 545 layers and nearly 100 colours; this does not establish physical manufacture by Kvadrat. The textile builds the visible body, distinct from the earlier aluminium Cloud Chair.

    Reviewed 25 October 2026 by PatinaHall editorial.
    • Source 1Project heading2013 and project explanation
    • Source 2Project description, Divina2014 context
  • Layers Cloud Chairuses materialDivina textile in Layers Cloud Chairdocumented

    Richard Hutten designed Layers Cloud Chair. Kvadrat supplied the Divina textile project account, including 545 layers and nearly 100 colours; this does not establish physical manufacture by Kvadrat. The textile builds the visible body, distinct from the earlier aluminium Cloud Chair.

    Reviewed 25 October 2026 by PatinaHall editorial.
    • Source 1Project heading2013 and project explanation
    • Source 2Project description, Divina2014 context

Research trail

Sources and further reading

  1. Layers Cloud Chair: Project heading2013 and project explanationrichardhutten.comAccessed 25 October 2026
  2. Layers Cloud Chair: Project description, Divina2014 contextkvadrat.dkAccessed 25 October 2026

Last reviewed 25 October 2026. Found an error or a stronger primary source? Contact PatinaHall.