NaughtOne's Lotti Chair: A beautifully simple café chair designed by Keiji Takeuchi.

At a first glance, Lotti may appear simple. But on a second look, the stout oversized legs, the curved waterfall seat, the magical floating backrest...suddenly its clever, considered, playful personality comes into focus.

Zoom in further and there’s a sustainability story to discover too - "a circular design that puts material intelligence and longevity first."

"Now dunk it in colour. Refine it with wood. Express your creativity and make it yours."

NaughtOne explains: when we design, we spend a lot of time paring back – refining, removing, concealing, until the things that aren’t there become as important to the character of the piece as the things that are. With Lotti, you don’t see the fasteners that attach the seat. You don’t see the fixings that secure the backrest – which floats, as if suspended in air. What you see is what’s left, not what’s added. There’s a pleasing mystery to that – a kind of magic.

The sustainability in Lotti is rooted in considered decisions about materials, construction and longevity – choices that quietly reduce impact over the life of the chair, says NaughtOne. Designed for high‑use environments, its most sustainable quality is simple: it’s built to keep going for a very long time – whether through its inherent strength and quality or the ease of disassembly.

Every fixing in Lotti is removable and can be accessed without specialist tools. There’s no glue locking components together, so it can be fully disassembled, serviced and returned to use without fuss, stress or friction.

Sustainable thinking extends into materiality and engineering. The plastic contains recycled content and the plywood components are finished with a water‑based lacquer. The steel frame has been carefully refined, reducing wall thickness to remove unnecessary material without compromising strength.

The NaughtOne team used its product scorecard during the design process to calculate the environmental impact of different solutions. It helped them weigh their choices, challenging them at every stage to seek better outcomes. The result is a chair whose sustainability value is practical not performative.

“Fundamentally, design is really about care.”

Lotti's designer is Keiji Takeuchi, a multi-disciplinary designer from Japan, now based in Milan. Whether creating a coffee grinder, café chair or a walking stick, he prioritises simplicity, function and feeling, always designing with people in mind. As he puts it, “Fundamentally, design is really about care.”

To find out more about Lotti, including the exact specifications, colour options, and LCA assessment, click here. And visit Material Source Studio Manchester to try out NaughtOne's furniture in person.