A couple of days ago I came across an article in the on-line design magazine Dezeen. Generally, I try to avoid just re posting anything but for a start these stools and combined stools and tables look great fun. They are by a young Swedish designer, Mia Cullin, who graduated from the University of Stockholm in 1998 and are from a collection called Orkester.

The idea of using a large screw thread to raise or lower a seat goes back to at least the early 20th century in furniture in, for example, piano stools and some early office stools for sitting at higher work benches and drawing boards. The form of a large wooden screw thread actually goes back further in wood-working tools, being used in the 18th and 19th centuries for large bench vices and clamps.

Here the use of the screw thread to raise and lower the circular stool seats is extremely clever … in the double units it allows one part to be raised to a higher level to work as a table or it lets an adult sit with a child at a common eye level.

The stools also illustrate beautifully a distinct aspect or major theme in Scandinavian design … to be able to reduce forms or shapes or pieces of furniture to their most simple and basic levels and to use block areas of colour or single strong colours but without making the piece appear to be stark or crudely designed or even minimalist in a stripped down or brutal way. Think of Stool 60 or Marimekko Unikko fabric.