Best Designer Bar Stools Australia: Counter Heights, Footrests, Materials

The seat height is the whole decision. Get it wrong and no amount of good design saves a stool that leaves knees jammed under the counter or feet swinging in open air — so choose by the number first, the material second. Objena carries three designer stools built to the two heights that actually matter in an Australian kitchen: two in Emeco's recycled aluminium, one in Form & Refine's solid oak.

Two heights, one measurement that matters

There are, in practice, only two heights worth knowing. A standard 90cm kitchen counter takes a stool with roughly a 61cm seat; a 105–110cm island or freestanding bar takes roughly 76cm. Emeco's own Starck-designed stool makes the distinction concrete: it has built the same aluminium form in three heights since 2001 — an 18-inch (46cm) low stool, a 24-inch (61cm) counter stool and a 30-inch (76cm) bar stool — all sharing one compact 14-by-14-inch footprint, so the only thing that changes between a kitchen island and a low side table is the leg length.

Emeco's 1006 Navy Stool: the aluminium counter option

The 1006 Navy Stool carries the name and the material of the 1006 Navy Collection Emeco built for the US Navy in 1944, when Alcoa and the fleet needed seating that would survive submarine and warship conditions — corrosion, impact, fire — better than the timber furniture it replaced. Emeco still hand-forms and welds the stool from recycled aluminium in its Hanover, Pennsylvania factory. In the counter-height version Objena carries, it stands 94cm overall with a 61cm seat, finished on stainless steel foot caps and clear plastic glides rather than a separate footrest rail; the seat height is low enough that most people's feet sit flat on the floor without needing one.

The Starck original, in the height we carry

Philippe Starck designed the Emeco Stool in 2001, and the prototype first appeared that year in a recreated café for the Museum of Modern Art's Mies van der Rohe retrospective — a set MoMA chose as pieces the architect himself might plausibly have picked. Emeco has built it in the same three heights ever since, all on that shared 14-by-14-inch base, and Objena's registered version is the counter-height edition: the same 61cm seat as the 1006 Navy Stool, in a narrower, more sculptural aluminium form built from the house's 80%-recycled material rather than a fresh casting.

Solid oak, no aluminium: Form & Refine's Blueprint Bar Chair 65

Where the Emeco pieces solve the height question in metal, Form & Refine's Blueprint Bar Chair 65 solves it in FSC-certified solid European oak. Designer Jonas Herman of Herman Studio built it with a moulded veneer seat and a backrest steam-bent from a single piece of timber, finished in natural oil rather than lacquer so the grain stays the visible material. It measures 97cm overall with a 65cm seat — a few centimetres above the 1006 Navy Stool and Emeco Stool, closer to a standard 90cm benchtop than a full island bar — and at 7kg it is light enough to move around a kitchen without the drag of a metal frame.

Objena carries the 1006 Navy Stool at AUD 1,520 and the Blueprint Bar Chair 65 at AUD 1,060, with the Starck-designed Emeco Stool at AUD 1,100 as a narrower aluminium alternative at the same counter height. The wider Emeco and Form & Refine ranges are covered in the Emeco chapter and the Form & Refine chapter.

Three questions

What seat height should I choose for a kitchen counter or island bar? Match the stool to the benchtop, not the other way round. Emeco builds its Starck-designed stool in three heights on one footprint — an 18-inch (46cm) low stool, a 24-inch (61cm) counter stool for a standard 90cm bench, and a 30-inch (76cm) bar stool for a 105–110cm island or freestanding bar. Objena's 1006 Navy Stool and Emeco Stool are both registered at the 61cm counter height.

What is the difference between the Emeco 1006 Navy Stool and the Emeco Stool by Philippe Starck? Both are hand-built from recycled aluminium in Emeco's Hanover, Pennsylvania factory, but they come from different lines. The 1006 Navy Stool carries the name and material of the 1006 Navy Collection Emeco built for the US Navy in 1944. The Emeco Stool is a 2001 Philippe Starck design, prototyped for a recreated café at MoMA's Mies van der Rohe retrospective, and built in three heights sharing a compact 14-by-14-inch base.

Is a timber bar stool durable enough for daily use, compared to aluminium? Differently durable, not less. Form & Refine's Blueprint Bar Chair 65 is FSC-certified solid European oak with a single-piece steam-bent backrest and a natural oil finish, built for indoor daily use and to show grain and wear honestly over time. Emeco's aluminium stools are hand-formed for corrosion resistance and outdoor-rated finishes — a different trade-off for a different room.