MellanRum

Furniture Design / Industrial Design — 2025

Honorable Mention — International Design Award (IDA) 2025

A place to take a break from the chaotic surroundings and reconnect with your inner peace and creativity.

MellanRum — Third Area Armchair. MellanRum, meaning "space in between" in Swedish, is inspired by Donald Winnicott's concept of the "Third Area" — a transitional space between our inner world and external reality.

The chair gives this psychological space a physical form: a place to pause, reflect and move freely between presence and imagination. Inner world, in-between, outer world — the chair holds the threshold.

Its enclosing form is inspired by the embrace of a parent, recalling our earliest experience of safety, belonging and serenity. The armrests gently surround the user like hands, creating a threshold that is neither separation nor complete enclosure, while the headrest allows a slight detachment from the surroundings without disconnecting from them.

Within this temporary space, the user can withdraw from the surrounding chaos while remaining connected to the world — creating room for comfort, calm, stillness, reflection and creativity.

The MellanRum identity is formed by two merging parentheses: a symbol of the space held between two forms, of hands gently enclosing an invisible volume, and of the meeting point between inner and outer worlds.