The Chairs We Heard

The Chairs We Heard is an experimental furniture project that explores sound as a design method. Rather than beginning with sketches or formal logic, the process starts with listening—allowing rhythm, emotion, and intuition to guide form. Music is not used as inspiration, but as structure, translated into spatial intention.

By questioning what a chair represents—not only a functional object, but a cultural and emotional presence—the project challenges conventional design approaches. The chair becomes a way to slow down and unlearn habitual ways of designing, rethinking how decisions are made in order to arrive at more human, honest, and unexpected results. Drawing on synesthetic processes, sound becomes a catalyst for movement, allowing form to emerge through the body rather than the intellect.

The project began with shared listening sessions, where participants were invited to listen to music and draw freely. Building on this collective material, Guajardo Dávila then deepened and structured the process individually, translating sound into two chairs shaped by distinct musical genres: one informed by the intensity of metal, the other by the layered rhythms of progressive rock. Each chair carries a colour palette derived from the emotional cues of the listening sessions, functioning as a temporary translation of sound into material presence.