The Spanish designer Alberto Sánchez has created a swing for adults that bring you closer to nature and back to your childhood years. This beautiful and romantic LEAF swing is designed to surprise and to transmit strong emotional charge. In this exclusive interview with Yatzer, Sánchez talks about how he came up with the idea to the swing, his design style and what inspires him as a designer.
When Sánchez describes his creation it is easy to vision the swing as a piece of poetry as well as a piece of seating furniture.
“The LEAF swing is inspired by the falling of leaves in autumn. The swing should be placed in outdoor spaces where the sunset glints through its leaf holes, creating sweet shadows. The slow rocking movement will remind you of the peace and tranquility of a child hearing a lullaby; a time to relax at the end of the day.”
The seat of the swing is mainly made out of fiber glass and carbon fiber while the ropes are made out of nylon.
“The idea came to me one morning when I was watching the movement of a leaf falling from a tree,” says Sánchez.
When the idea was formed Sánchez started the process to go from idea to ready product and went through several steps including observation of nature, synthesizing graphics, models, search for materials and finally prototypes.
Sánchez describes his design style as emotional design inspired by nature.
”There is a new idea spawned, materialized from a concept and then it is released to the public audience and then transformed into sensations and experiences. The products are considered as an emotional income for the public,” he says.
Sánchez was born in Valencia, Spain in 1980. He studied both graphic design and product design and in order to create a good foundation for becoming a fine furniture designer he combined his studies with working for graphic design, product and interior companies.
“While I was studying I started working as well because I was very curious. I wanted to know how life really was for a professional designer,” Sánchez says. His first design creation, which also was his final school project, was a bathroom furniture collection. This collection won the Spanish BANCAJA Award 2006.
Sánchez tells Yatzer that he loves the LEAF swing because is a poetic and emotional product.
“I like projects with soul and spirit, LEAF tells and history and activate the user's senses. The nature is very important in my personal life and LEAF is an abstraction of autumn, the falling of the trees leaves,” he says.
He continues by saying that he is proud of all his projects he has done over the years because they are an evolutionary process of learning.
“Every time my projects have more strength and personality, therefore I always see them positive. Design is the sum of knowledge. The best source of inspiration is knowledge,”
The priority for Sánchez and his company ENEA Studio is to connect with the public. He says that he wishes that ENEA’s products succeed to evoke different sensations and feelings in the public like; The touch of the seawater while walking along the beach; Wind that moves the hair when riding a bike; The smoothness of sand while playing with it; The feeling of rain falling. This wish to stir up feelings is also obvious in the way Sánchez intend the LEAF swing to be used.
“In private spaces, I would like LEAF to be used in rest areas, for moments of relaxation and reflection at the end of the day. In public spaces I like to see LEAF in hotels near the sea, with your feet in the sand, sweet music and perfect company, enjoying a summer night,” says Sánchez.
