MACHINE FOR
SITTING By Rylie Bicknell BDS 102
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A cardboard prototype can tell more about the true identity of a design than a studio photograph of the final product. A drawing can show something of the momentum with which design ideas are born. A picture of a product detached from its usual context can reveal the beauty or originality of the object. Snapshots of meetings and working sessions in the studio and of different stages of the production bear witness to the design process and its transformations in time.
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-Florian Bohm
TABLE OF CONTENTS 01 - Readings 02 - Chair Dissection 03 - In A Day 04 - Meet Your Seat 05 - Final Chair
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01 READINGS
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The Cultural History of Sitting Down in Japan As a result of Westernization, Japanese culture has changed. It’s no longer unusual to see a house without a tatami-mat and less young people sit on the floor. As a result their ability to sit on the floor has significantly reduced and the Japanese lack an understanding of how to keep their bodies from stress. The designer builds chairs from the things she’s learned from Japanese sitting culture. The Japanese design architecture around the seats. You need to sit down in an area to get a feel for the space. The Japanese place an emphasis on the strength of their legs, which is seen through statues of Buddha. The statues bodies are perfectly balanced and the designer learned the perfect natural sitting posture from this. Most things vary by culture, however I had never thought of our point of views as something that varied. The tourist who wouldn’t sit down because of his culture was really interesting to me. I also thought the diagram of floor sitting postures was interesting because I didn’t know there were so many ways to sit. It seems like such a simple task, but it means so much more in Japan. I don’t often sit on the ground because I find it uncomfortable. My natural posture would probably be sitting in a chair somewhat hunched.
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Seeking Comfort In An Uncomfortable Chair People are more concerned with the way their chairs look than their ability to function. Designers go crazy trying to design the most unique and innovative furniture, when really they should be creating more practical designs. The variations of furniture should perfect the function and not follow fashion. A hammer is created to showcase its pattern, but to be used. This goes for a chair as well. Fashion shouldn’t be more important than the comfort. People are concerned with having something different and model that’s their own, when they should be I agree Munari in that function should precede fashion. Hevalues the practical side of a design rather than decoration. I think we get so caught up in having the latest and greatest, or the most unique thing on the market that we aren’t even really thinking about if its practical or not. I know that the furniture I’ll own will be functional first. I choose comfort over fashion in that department. Munari believes trends will come and go, but a design should be made to last.
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V I S U A L C H A I R DISSECTION
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Activity Description During class we split into teams and were assigned a specific chair. Within our groups we dissected its elements and functions to better understand the design. We broke out with mind maps and explored its make up, basic components, and purposes. We reflected on its beauty, quality, and comfort. After we had time to dissect the chair each group prepared an elevator pitch. My group was given an Eames armchair. For our pitch we decided to focus on its quality, elegance, comfort, and well thought out design. The designer itself raises the chairs status along with the delicate welds that can be seen on the bottom of the base. Because the chair is black we described it as sleek. Had the chair been lime green, a totally different feel would have been present. The chair is also relatively comfortable. It has an indention near the back that allows you to lean. There are also several well thought out details, such as the rubber bottoms of the legs.This allows mobilitiy and avoids scratching the floors when it pivots. This activity really showed me how many ways there are to design a chair. Before my view was very limited. There were so many different types, purposes, patterns, and details of the chairs that the possibilities of a new design seemed endless. It made me want to find better chairs for my home and really think about why we choose to buy the chairs we do. So much goes into the objects we sit on every day and most of the time we don’t take time to think about it.
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03 IN A DAY
PROJECT 12
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Activity Description For the In a Day project our class split into groups and was given the task of creating a chair out of a 4x4 piece of cardboard in a single class period. The seat needed to hold the weight of a body and be able to unfold into one continuous sheet. We weren’t allowed to use anything but cuts and folds to put our seat together. Within the In a Day project I learned how to better manipulate cardboard. In terms of structure, I learned that cardboard should be scored correctly for it to bend the way you want it to. My group designed a chair where the base curved into the backing. To make this shape possible we had to score the corrugated cardboard so it would curve, but the first time around we scored against the lines instead of with. Originally we had only scored the base, but then realized the backing was too rigid. We then had to score the chair backing to help the base wrap into it. At first the task seemed daunting, but after our plan was underway I was surprised at how well it came together. I had to make up this assignment after class, so I had the slight advantage of seeing some finished chairs. The entire process took a little over an hour and our chair was able to hold my weight.
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04 MEET YOUR S E A T
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Activity Description For the Meet Your Seat activity we were split into groups and assigned a specific designer’s chair. It was our responsibility to present information on the designer’s background and also the form, function, and materials used in his or her chair. We sketched the chair from different points of view and created a six inch model. My group was given Joris Laarman, a Dutch designer, artist and entrepreneur who is known for his experimental designs. He graduated from the Design Academy Eindhoven in 2003 and founded the Joris Laarman lab with his partner Anita Star in 2004. Their lab combines craftsmen, scientists, and engineers to create a wide range of products such as furniture, museum installations, architecture, and film. Joris has contributed to articles and seminars for Domus Magazine and has lectured at various universities. His design, the bone chair, was formed using an algorithm to mimic the functionality of human bone and tree growth, which was translated it into a chair. Trees add material where strength is needed and bones take away material where its not needed. Joris used a digital tool that constructed parts in this same way. He was able to design the shape of the chair on the computer and take away the excess space that wasn’t needed. The chair was inspired by nature and is an organic shape. It uses curvature transitions and could be described as cold and elegant. It imitates nature, but is built out of metal.
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Function and Material The bone chair acts as a support system for the sitter. It provides ease and comfort while remaining elegant. It’s a decorative piece that contributes to the interior design of the room and has aesthetic appeal. It fuses nature with man-made materials and is supportive and comfortable without using a lot of material. It’s shape starts out as one block of material, but through the process of carving, is transformed into a branching figure, similar to the way a bone would grow. It’s effective in that it’s strong where it needs to bear loads and open where no material is necessary. It consists of cast aluminum and is made in the same way the carmaker refines car parts to increase strength and efficient use of material. The chair looks solid, but the metal of the frame is hollow inside. It can support several times the weight of an ordinary chair, but weighs much less and uses a lot less material. They used 3D printing to help make the chair, allowing them to create a ceramic mold from the computer model. From there, they pour molten aluminum into the mold, allow it to cool, and then smash the mold open. Then, to finish making the chair, all they have to do is trim the excess aluminum and polish the metal surface.
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05 MACHINE
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SITTING 22
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Final Chair In the final stage of this project we were to construct a chair that was 50 percent our design and 50 percent inspired by our Meet Your Seat chair without the help of glue or tape. Throughout this process there were many mind maps, sketches, models, and rough draft versions that helped me arrive at my final production. Because the bone chair was inspired by branches and bones, I mind mapped off of both of these topics. I chose to stick with nature for my chair and sketched various forms of leaves, branches, and tree trunks. After making my five models I decided that I wasn’t happy with the ones I had created. They were very leaf focused and more literal than I wanted. I began experimenting with the original form of my In a Day project.I liked the idea of the spiral acting as tree rings and the seat part as a tree trunk.I decided on this design with tree branches as the backing to keep with the theme of the bone chair. I knew I wanted to texturize it, so I took multiple parts of cardboard and played with different ways to imitate tree bark. These pieces were then connected with tabs to the outer ring. Overall I enjoyed this project more than I thought would. Since I’m interested in graphics, 3D projects intimidate me. I felt out of my comfort zone at first, but the In a Day project really helped prepare me for the final one. I enjoyed creating something that functioned and will last. I can walk away from this project feeling proud that I put fifteen hours outside of class to make this chair out of cardboard with no tape or glue.
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