For thousands of years, the raddest craftspeople and explorers in the world sat on Trippy chairs. Now, these were thick, heavy, handcarved seats—the perfect statement piece for a mead hall or chieftain’s tent. From a chair like that, you could rule in style.

Cut to the present. Honestly, it’s bleak. The world’s saturated with copy+paste chairs made of polyester and plastic. But in a dim warehouse office, a few entrepreneurs take turns sitting in an antique x-shaped chair from Africa. And in that brush with the past, they catch a vision of the future.

“What if it was super light?” they asked. “And portable? Or printable?”