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An object shaped by movement and everyday use

Charvet’s Cork Stool was not conceived as a fixed function, but as a type of object that could move easily through daily life.  Light enough to be carried with one hand, silent when placed on the floor, resistant without being rigid—it invites handling. Not carefully, but casually. It can be a seat, a side table, a step, a base. Or something in between. “I hope it can be used in many ways,” he explains. “You never really know how objects will be lived with.” This uncertainty is built into the design. Rather than prescribing use, the stool remains open—defined as much by its movement as by its form.

Charvet often works from material rather than from form—but his approach is less about transformation, and more about anchoring. With Cork Stool, the humble material became that point of departure. 

“I like starting from something that already exists,” he says. “A material, a site, a technique. It gives you a starting point.”

Finding the right expression for cork

What drew him in was not only its technical properties, but its contradictions: soft yet durable, lightweight yet visually dense, absorbent yet resilient. Its naturally darker tone gives the object a grounded presence—less about lightness, more about quiet weight. A material that suggests a certain kind of behavior before any form is defined. “It’s quiet," he notes. “You can move it, drop things on it—it doesn’t create noise.”

From that single observation, a type of object begins to emerge. Rather than shaping cork into something refined or reduced, Charvet allows it to remain what it is. The stool is thick—more substantial than a wooden equivalent would need to be. Its proportions are dictated by the material’s capacity to hold weight, but also by how it is perceived by the eye and the hand.

“There’s a balance between thickness and proportion,” he explains. “It looks quite bulky, but feels light.”

This is not about minimizing material, but about finding what he calls the right expression for it. Letting the object reflect the logic of its making, rather than disguising it. 

Designed to change with time and use

If the stool is defined by use, it is also defined by what happens over time. Cork yields slightly under pressure. It responds to the body. Gradually, the surface may begin to curve—subtly registering the presence of the person who uses it. “I’d be very happy if it takes on the shape of the person sitting on it,” Charvet says. This is not wear to be avoided, but something to be welcomed. A way for the object to become specific—to move from generic form to something lived-in. “There is something very touching about these traces,” he adds.

The stool is one of the most familiar objects in the home. Its form is almost archetypal. Charvet does not attempt to reinvent it, but to shift its behaviour through material.

“It’s a very simple and defined typology, approached through cork,” he explains.

That shift is enough to change how the object is handled, how it sounds, how it ages, how it moves. Small adjustments that alter the experience without overcomplicating the form.

A continuing exploration of object and material

Being selected as a runner-up in Muuto Design Contest 002 marks an important point of recognition for Charvet’s approach. “It’s an encouraging moment,” he says. “And hopefully the beginning of a longer dialogue. Muuto comes with a strong understanding of everyday objects—where function remains central, but is continuously reinterpreted—and I feel my work sits naturally within that.” Cork Stool is perfectly at home in that context: familiar, but slightly displaced. Defined by a strong sense of clarity, but open in use.

Charvet’s practice moves across scales—from objects to architecture—but the underlying interest remains consistent: how small, subtle changes affect the way we live with things. Cork is only one part of that exploration. He speaks of working with split wood, with light, with water—materials and conditions that shape space over time. For now, the stool remains a starting point. An object that doesn’t insist on its role, but adapts to it. Something to sit on, yes—but just as easily something to move.