In a career that spans little more than 20 years, British-born and Hong Kong based designer Michael Young established himself from the beginning as one of the world ’ s leading figures in his trade. The uniqueness of Michael's work lies in his constant questioning of typologies and habits, combined with the pioneering passion for technology that brought him to Asia. He continuously crosses boundaries and pushes innovation to it's limits in a fresh approach that effortlessly blends east and west while marrying the industry to what is often seen as it's very opposite: sheer poetry. “ It is design as industrial art that interests me, not in a limited edition, but in mass production ” .

Michael Young designed this collection for new Hong Kong brand eoq as a response to an open offer to create anything he wanted to in their factory. Whilst working on the design of a new restaurant in Asia Michael believed this would be the perfect chance to build a solid and holistic collection for the brand. The 4a collection explores new technologies and typologies made available only by working with highly skilled engineering facilities in Shenzhen, China.

For Young the chair was developed through observation of Mac book industries. “ I realised that if I could capture the engineering skills employed by local industry and put that depth of knowledge in aluminium research in furniture design using a similar mass-produced nature, I could design a state of the art and relevant chair. In recent years chairs have taken all nature of shape and form due to the use of plastics, but plastic in itself is not a pleasant material to use. Its tactility and its aging process are highly unpleasant. For the same price I can use recycled aluminium and in fact create a more sustainable chair that also utilises skilled labour rather than the press of a button. The tooling is complex but we created a chair that lasts a lifetime, engineered beyond plastic technology and far more sustainable ” .