Good Design for the Great Outdoors

Good design often comes out of a specific need. That was the case in the 1960s when Florence Knoll Bassett, living in Florida, discovered that the only outdoor furniture available was made of lightweight webbing and aluminum tubing—and didn’t perform well in inclement weather. The pieces held rainwater and blew around her garden and into her pool. So she asked Richard Schultz and the Knoll design development group to produce some quality outdoor furniture. “Dick Schultz found this very interesting, fine-scale web material that stood up very well outdoors, and he started designing chairs and a chaise longue with solid aluminum,” Bassett says. His line (now known as the 1966 Collection, see photo 8) has become a design classic and—along with the following products—should make outdoor living more enjoyable for everyone.