Awards:

Zephyr Hammock

Heliotrope, LLC, was an outdoor furniture company established with a former client of our principal, Gary Wolf. Inspired by discussions of possible outdoor furniture products, Gary’s challenge was to conceptualize and design a unique piece of furniture that might become the initial offering to help establish the identity of the new company. Then the challenge was to develop that design through to production, utilizing existing manufacturers for the various components.

Gary made the sketches and models that led to the decision to develop the Zephyr Hammock, and was the lead designer throughout, for this new, modern version of the traditional garden hammock. He interacted closely with the Heliotrope team and fabricators in exploring materials, details and approaches to manufacturing the piece, which included a serpentine, powder-coated aluminum frame, demountable into three separate sections, with removable legs; stainless steel hardware; and a hammock of replaceable acrylic mesh Sunbrella fabric for weather resistance. Gary also invented the “monopoint” hammock frame, supported by a single central post that can be let into an aluminum base, cast into a concrete footing.

The Zephyr received a number of major national awards and was selected as one of the ten best products of the year by Time magazine. Additionally the hammock was published in periodicals and newspapers across the country, appearing in both the popular press and in design publications.