The Za Stool: Naoto Fukasawa's Aluminium Haiku for Emeco

The Za Stool is Naoto Fukasawa's design for Emeco — a round-seated aluminium stool built in the same 77-step Hanover, Pennsylvania process as the Navy Chair, and conceived as a sibling to it rather than a new range on its own terms. Fukasawa drew it in three heights from recycled aluminium, launched in February 2021, and it carries the same lifetime guarantee Emeco puts behind every chair it builds.

A stool built to join the Navy family, not to replace it

Fukasawa has been explicit about where the Za Stool sits in Emeco's catalogue: "The Navy chair is one of the most identified icons in America. I had an image of a round stool, which could become a part of the Navy chair family, like a brother or sister." The name reinforces the same modesty — "za" is Japanese for "a place to sit," not a product name chosen to stand out. The seat carries a defined rim, a small detail meant to keep whoever sits down centred on the stool rather than to decorate it, which is the closest the design gets to ornament.

Seventy-seven steps, one round seat

Za is handbuilt at Emeco's Hanover, Pennsylvania factory on the same production line as the Navy Chair, following the house's 77-step process from recycled aluminium through to finished piece. It is offered in three heights — a short stool at 48cm, a counter-height version at 64cm and a bar-height version at 76cm — each sharing a 45cm-diameter seat. The finish is where the labour shows most plainly: alongside six powder-coat colours, Emeco offers a hand-brushed clear-anodised version and a hand-polished one, the latter run through the buffing stage three separate times across roughly eight hours per stool to bring the aluminium to a mirror shine rather than a matte surface.

The smallest footprint in Emeco's range

Emeco has called Za the lowest-carbon piece it has built to date, and an independent calculation backs the scale of that claim: a Za Stool works out to roughly 8.1kg CO2e, against about 14.88kg CO2e for a Navy Chair and somewhere near 30kg for a comparable chair in virgin material — in the same range as a pair of jeans. None of that changes what the stool is made from — the same recycled aluminium Emeco has built with since 1944 — only how little of it a stool this size requires, and how much of the embodied energy from earlier products the material is still carrying forward.

A companion, not a replacement

Where the Navy Chair was built to a US Navy specification for warships, Za was drawn with no brief beyond "indoors and outdoors, everywhere" — it moves between a kitchen counter, a bar and a terrace without needing a different chair for each. Seen next to the Navy Chair, the family resemblance is legible in the tubular aluminium and the unfussy geometry, but the round seat and the rim are Za's own vocabulary, not a stool-shaped copy of the chair beside it.

Objena carries the Za Stool at AUD 1,080 in hand-brushed aluminium, alongside the 1006 Navy Chair it was designed to sit beside. The wider Emeco story — the 77-step build, the recycled material, the lifetime guarantee — runs through the Emeco chapter.

Three questions

Who designed the Emeco Za Stool, and what was the brief? Naoto Fukasawa designed the Za Stool for Emeco, launched in February 2021. He has described the intent as wanting "an image of a round stool, which could become a part of the Navy chair family, like a brother or sister" — a companion piece rather than a stand-alone new range.

What is the Za Stool made from and how is it built? Recycled aluminium, hand-built at Emeco's Hanover, Pennsylvania factory across the same 77-step process used for the Navy Chair. It comes in three heights — a short stool (48cm), counter height (64cm) and bar height (76cm), each with a 45cm-diameter seat — in hand-brushed, hand-polished or six powder-coat finishes.

Is the Za Stool more sustainable than Emeco's other aluminium seating? By Emeco's own figures it is the lowest-footprint piece in the range to date. An independent calculation put a Za Stool at roughly 8.1kg CO2e, against about 14.88kg CO2e for a Navy Chair and around 30kg for a comparable virgin-material chair.