Even though Dutch designer/mom Maartje Steenkamp created a high chair I love--which is now on sale in the US, btw, who knew?--I kind of boycotted writing anything about her other cool children's furniture design just because the name bugged: the Mother/Child Dining table.
But I'm over it now that Steenkamp's introduced the Child/Child Chair [or childchildchair, actually], a non-gendered kid-sized, minimalist table/chair combo designed to let two kids, one bigger, one smaller, have a little quality time together at a single table. Gotta say, as a Donald Judd furniture groupie, I think it's one of the sweetest-looking, friendliest, and most interesting pieces of minimalist furniture I've ever seen.
The Mother/Child version was cool, but the baby's chair height always made me nervous. With the childchildchair, that problem's solved. Of course, there's probably a limited window in which the ccc will really be useful, and if you space your kids out too much, well, you're out of the market altogether.
But otherwise, if I had a kid and one on the way, I'd be all over this thing. And thus, the point of writing about this now. The childchildchild was at this spring's Milan furniture fair [where designboom.com snapped this picture of it], but ModernChild.net has just announced it has an exclusive launch for the US all of North America [hi, Canada!] of the ccc, and it's taking orders now for the numbered, stamped first edition, which will be delivered Oct/Nov. 2006. The price: $245 plus shipping [get a quote], which is pretty damn cheap, I think.
Pre-order a childchildchair at ModernChild.net for $245, 50% deposit required [modernchild.net via dt reader naomi]
Maartje Steenkamp preview at Milan Design Week 2006 [designboom.com]
Maartje Steenkamp studio site [maartjesteenkamp.nl]
Previously: MS Highchair for Droog Design is now on sale in Denver at ZModern.com, $195. very cool. [daddytypes.com, zmodern.com]
The small seat would be great for dolls or bears later. Even better if the little child seat back folded down to make the table surface larger when the seat wasn't occupied. Maybe I need to get me some plywood . . .
If I think this Ikea-looking stuff is ugly as sin, am I reading the wrong blog, or am I one that can be educated into liking this weird furniture? 8-)
[stick around either way; think of it as a cloud momentarily passing in front of the blazing sun of the site's otherwise comforting wisdom ;) -ed.]