As a child, Nicolai Czumaj-Bront was gifted a hand-crafted stool with his name and birthdate inscribed into the wood, lovingly fashioned by a grandfather who built his own home and created handmade furniture. His other grandfather was a carpenter, and his mother and father are a graphic designer and engineer, respectively. Having grown up amongst this creative household, it’s no surprise that Czumaj-Bront ultimately found industrial design to be his calling in life.

Originally studying Psychology and Philosophy at Kent State University before graduating in Industrial Design at the University of Illinois, Czumaj-Bront draws much of his design inspiration from his interest in exploring the relationship of translation–the conversion of an abstract concept into something tangible and physically real.

In 2005, Czumaj-Bront left his design studio Beoform and began working with Haworth on the development of several key designs in Haworth’s workplace furniture collection, and the exploration of Haworth’s European product solutions. Since then, he has been recognised for his quality designs with the achievement of winning Design Within Reach’s “Chicago Furniture Now” 2007 competition, and a NeoCon Gold Award in 2008 for the NC-B Resonate Shelf.

The NC-B Resonate Shelf is designed to imitate nature and plays with light and shadow through fluid lines and abstract spaces, as well as its contrasting exterior and interior colour ways. Czumaj-Bront describes his intent as wanting to, “create a storage element that could create or define a space as well as provide a backdrop within an environment.”

His Harbor Work Lounge, on the other hand, is an elegant and versatile solution for the workplace, functioning as a hybrid lounge-chair that can be paired with an ottoman that also serves as a pull-up stool for passers by and a spare surface for notebooks and laptops. The performance suede wing of the Harbor Work Lounge is inbuilt with a cup holder, and the lounge has the option of being equipped with a sliding tablet arm for a comfortable work space.

A broad colour range for the leather and suede upholstery allows for the Harbor Work Lounge to be perfectly customised to suit the personality of a large variety of spaces. The lounge is sleek and simple, inspired by the shape of a human palm and three principal questions: “Where do you like to work, how do you like to work, and what do you need to work?”

As part of Haworth’s Design Studio, Nicolai Czumaj-Bront is eager to continue to explore his lifelong passion for design and the evolution of the modern workspace.

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