Five weird and wonderful seating designs from Collectible Brussels 2026

The latest edition of the Collectible fair in Brussels saw designers explore seating with a difference, presenting daybeds made from beeswax and metal, inverted sofas and a gigantic inflatable seat.

The Collectible fair, which focuses on collectible design and is held in Brussels and New York every year, doubled down on the trend for industrial-style design with pieces that might not look comfortable but definitely caught visitors' eyes.

Read on for our roundup of five unusual daybeds and sofas shown by Collectible participants:

Inflatable sofa by Naked Space for Vasto Gallery

Barcelona-based Vasto Gallery welcomed visitors with a massive inflatable sofa at the entrance to Collectable, featuring sleek, undulating lines that resemble those on a sports car.

The eight-metre-long translucent piece by design collective Naked Space was a collaboration between Vasto Gallery and Spanish brand Project Lobster and marks the start of a new inflatable furniture brand project.

"It has a peaceful power and a playful side," Vasto Gallery co-founder Carmen Riestra told Dezeen of the design.

"It's bringing back this kind of material indoors – you see it and imagine it outdoors, but it can be placed inside your home in a comfortable way. You can live with this inflatable furniture and you can pack it and transport it really easily."

Vasto Gallery will present smaller versions of the sofa, as well as inflatable armchairs, later this year.

Metal daybed by Anoe Melliou for Regarding Relations

Berlin collective Regarding Relations created a boudoir-inspired showcase of all-female designers, where delicate fabrics met gleaming metal, sharp edges and industrial designs.

"The idea was to recreate this intimate space of a woman beyond the cliches, because there's a lot of visual connotations associated with the idea of a boudoir and what a boudoir looks like," designer Annalise Agossa, who co-curated the booth, told Dezeen.

"We thought it would be interesting to bring the work of women-only designers and that there's something unusual about recreating this space from our perspective, creating a feel that's not expected."

Among the pieces on show was designer and stall co-curator Anoe Melliou's metal daybed, which has a curved shape and sits on wheels – making it more of a design for a woman on the move than one looking for a place to lounge.

Foam daybed by Pablo Octavio for Full Circle

Designer Pablo Octavio created his brutalist daybed from polyurethane foam, spray-painted with a flexible paint to make it waterproof.

The padded seat, which features edges that were left visibly uneven, sits on top of a base made from bent aluminium sheets.

The daybed was the continuation of an earlier project by Octavio, the Lapis Lazuli series, for which he created a large, rock-like chair.

"I wanted to elevate the foam, lift it from the ground and make it more like furniture, instead of having the monolithic appearance of the chair," he told Dezeen. "From this piece on, I want to work on benches and other seating objects."

Alma Mater daybed by AB+AC Architects

The latest addition to Lisbon-based AB+AC Architects' Alma Mater collection is a daybed with a difference – upholstery made from cylinders of solid beeswax.

The wax is melted into aluminium moulds and dried in a slow process that makes them very smooth, before being placed on a custom-made metal frame.

"We really love the idea that over time people will start to leave their shape, their trace [in the wax]," AB+AC Architects co-founder Arianna Bavuso told Dezeen.

"It will become an indentation, like the memory form of a mattress," she continued. "I love this idea of creating a dialogue between the user and the designer."

The beeswax cylinders can be moved to create different designs for the daybed and if they begin to form a shape that the user doesn't like, they can be sent back to AB+AC Architects to be remelted and reshaped.

Invert sofa by Alan Prekop for Curated

The Invert sofa, designed by Slovak architect Alan Prekop and sculptor Sebastian Komáček, does indeed have an inverted design that highlights the metal structure normally found on the underside of a sofa.

Here, the sculptural sofa instead has a latex cushion as its primary structural element.

"We decided to create something bespoke because we are working with stainless steel a lot," Prekop told Dezeen. "And every time, stainless steel is the construction bearer, it's something heavy that bears everything and the cushion is something soft that you want to sit on."

"So we thought about flipping it, to invert it and create a cushion that will bear heavy constructions."

Collectible 2026 took place from 12 March to 15 March 2026 at Vanderborght, Rue de l'Ecuyer 50 Schildknaapstraat, Brussels. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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