About us
At the age of 5, Olaf Bollmann discovered a large yellow ball in a garden during a walk with his parents... Decades later, he not only acquired one of these rare specimens, but also the rights to it. Since then, he has been inspired by the idea of reissuing the ball. In collaboration with the creator Herbert Selldorf and with the support of Günther Ferdinand Ris' family, the Sunball is now back in the world!
History
Take a globe, a beach chair and cushions, combine them with an unrestrained enthusiasm for extraterrestrial human expeditions and you have a garden-suitable relaxation capsule: the Sunball. As with the Ball or Globe Chair designed by Eerio Arnio in 1963, this is also a hybrid of furniture and architecture. An armchair in which you can isolate yourself from your surroundings, withdraw and protect yourself. A design vision that is reflected in an era characterized by the arms race in the form of shelters and the arrangement of modular architectural elements.
Impressions 1968
Production
Designed in the late 1960s by the sculptor Günther Ferdinand Ris and the architect Herbert Selldorf, the Sunball exemplifies the pop design of the time: round, expansive shapes in bright colors, made of fiberglass. This was made possible in part by the hand-laminating process, a technology with which large-format plastic furniture could be produced manually from highly tensile fiberglass. The impregnation of fiber material with polyester resin on negative molds involved a great deal of work, but the low tooling costs made it an ideal way to produce three-dimensionally shaped prototypes and small series. With a height of just under 160 cm and a width of 170 cm, the Sunball can comfortably accommodate two adults, while the circular storage table, which can be rotated on one side, offers plenty of space for nuts and salted meat. The upper ball segment can be slipped over the lower shell by means of side-mounted swivel hinges to protect the cover from the weather.