"Chip" Lounge chair by Teppo Asikainen & Iikka Terho for Snowcrash

Lounge chair by Teppo Asikainen & Iikka Terho for Snowcrash. 1996. Finland. “CHIP” Plywood and rubber. 57cm high, 141cm wide, 60cm deep. Held at the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo, Norway; no. NMK.2008.0121. Teppo Asikainen and Ilkka Terho emerged in the 1990s as part of Snowcrash, a Finnish‑Swedish design collective that sought to rethink how furniture could respond to the dawning digital age. Both trained as architects, they began collaborating in the mid‑1990s, driven by a vision of furniture that directly addressed emerging “cyberspace” lifestyles. In 1995, while still in their twenties, Asikainen and Terho created Netsurfer—a reclined workstation tailored for computer users. Conceived in a Helsinki garage and first exhibited at Habitare (Helsinki) that year, the Netsurfer went on to feature at Milan’s Salone del Mobile in 1997 and was produced by Snowcrash between 1999 and 2002, reaching international attention via MoMA’s Workspheres show in 2001. Building on Netsurfer’s form, the duo designed Chip in 1996—a plywood rocker derived from its predecessor, optimised for ergonomics and gentle rocking. Chip debuted at Helsinki’s Museum of Applied Arts that same year and was later produced by Snowcrash through the early 2000s. In 1997, the pair helped launch the Snowcrash exhibition in Milan: a forward‑looking showcase of furniture and lighting that explored material innovation and early workplace technologies—acy acoustic panels, portable workspace modules, and more. Snowcrash was praised for translating the optimism and form of the Internet era into functional, digital‑era interiors.