Hemp chair at Isola festival

Designer Veronica Olariu is bringing a plant-fiber seat called Hemp Chair to Milan Design Week 2026, where it will appear in Isola Design Festival’s “No Space for Waste” show. (designboom.com) The festival runs from April 20 to April 26, 2026, during Milan Design Week, and marks Isola Design Festival’s tenth edition under the theme “TEN: The Evolving Now.” (archiportale.com) Olariu’s chair uses hemp fabric, a pineapple-leaf fiber composite core, slender wood supports and a tensioned rope system. Designboom reported that the visible structure keeps the two shell-like forms in equilibrium through counterbalance and tension. (designboom.com) In plain terms, the chair works like a balanced hanging structure: force is pulled through rope and frame instead of being carried by a thick solid block. Olariu describes it as part of an ongoing material research project that follows the structural logic of her earlier Counterpoise Chair. (veronicaolariu.com) The exhibition where it will appear is centered on circular design, production control and the reuse of discarded or underused resources. Isola’s listing says “No Space for Waste” brings together projects built around those ideas for Milan Design Week 2026. (isola.design) That places Hemp Chair inside a wider design push to replace petrochemical-heavy materials with plant-based ones and to show how objects are made, not just how they look. Isola’s project page presents the work as an example of combining plant fiber with tension-based construction to rethink strength in furniture. (isola.design) Olariu’s own project site says the hemp used for the chair was grown in northern Thailand and developed with local engineers and workshops through repeated prototyping and testing. A separate 2026 movement film shows performer Nitipat Ong Phonchai interacting with the chair in Thailand. (thehempchair.com) (vimeo.com) The Isola program this year includes returning formats such as Isola Design Gallery, Rising Talents and “No Space for Waste,” all tied to material research and sustainability. Fuorisalone’s 2026 preview says those exhibitions are part of the district’s anniversary edition. (fuorisalone.it) For visitors in Milan later this month, the chair will be one of the festival’s case studies in how furniture can be built from agricultural fibers and held together by visible tension instead of hidden mass. (designboom.com)