At the 2026 3daysofdesign in Copenhagen, furniture made headlines for its unique silhouettes and materials alike. Danish industrial designer Rikke Frost also debuted her compelling new prototype, Hempli – Fibre & Frame, at the festival. The piece was showcased in the collective exhibition MÆRK – Perception through Design, which challenged 16 independent designers to explore human perception through specialized material languages.
The inspiration and philosophy behind Frost’s Hempli chair center on shifting our relationship with everyday objects from passive viewing to active sensory engagement. True to Frost’s material-led approach, the project began with raw textures rather than a predefined shape.
The Hempli chair highlights hemp, a historically overlooked and underutilized natural fiber, and treats it as a core structural element rather than a basic surface layer. Frost describes hemp as a living material that actively pushes back, forcing the designer to navigate a fluid balance between physical handcraft, body interaction, and rigid construction.
The overarching aesthetic centers on the stark juxtaposition between an unyielding, rigid steel frame and the tactile, organic softness of heavy hemp webbing. The chair is designed to activate human sensory perception. Frost describes the visual profile as pure structure, while the physical experience of sitting creates the emotional and tactile essence.
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True to her studio’s philosophy of “Minimal, Magical, Mindful,” the visual language leans on absolute reduction. However, this simplicity is never neutral; it carries distinct atmospheric weight, texture, and raw material honesty.
The final object is a chair, whose design explores physical and emotional tension, summarized by Frost’s perspective: “What you see is structure; what you feel defines the work.”
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