Functional Gadget Line

The collection

The Lean back Chair





The Shy Chair





The Story time Chair





The Hug Chair



The Cover Chair







The Side Chair



The Relax Chair



The Hang on Chair







Chosen Chair & Theme

Chosen Chair

The chair I have chosen to work with for the collection is an old wooden chair used in a hotel. It is a comfortable chair but not over designed.

Theme

As all fashion lines my functional gadget chair collection has also a theme. This helps me to focus more and make sure the designs fit together.

On an Autumn day in the forest…

I chose the materials and colours out of the theme.

 



Underneath you can find some inspirational designs.

Chair Collection

I actually chose to give a gadget to the chair because it is the most ordinary object we know. Kids all draw it in the same way. If we think of a chair we all have the same image in our mind. A chair is also the object most tackled by designers. Every designer wants to create his/her own chair.

The collection of chairs is going to look like a fashion line, meaning that the items will fit together by the fact that they will have something in common but will be all different in their own way due to their characteristics and use. Maybe even creating a collection depending on the season. The additional parts of the chair will be like clothing, it will be possible to take the gadget off, meaning that it won’t be fixed onto the chair.

What does exists already to personalize our chairs? Just some cushions. All our equipment of the current society does have a lot of ways to personalize it. For example an I-phone, you can personalize with stands, covers, bags, inscriptions and so on. The collection will become a line of gadgets for ordinary chairs. The gadgets of the chairs will say something about the owner. It will therefore give personality to the chair but also express the one of its owner. The gadgets should also become functional.

The line of chairs will create an interaction with the user while creating an atmosphere and therefore a space on their own. They will create a space within a space.

Chair 1: Lean back Chair – Basic line

 

Chair 2: Shy Chair – Basic line





Chair 3: Family Chair – Basic line

Chair 4: Hug Chair – Winter line

 



Chair 5: Garden Lover Chair –Spring line

Identity Chair

My previous research has lead me to the aspect of identity since I have the desire to evoke the experience of individuality. Out of the foam experiments I made which manipulated a certain material I came to the idea that actually you take the identity of the material away and create a new one with its own characteristics. By introducing an additional material the primary material gets a new characteristic. This lead me to the idea of giving identical furniture a new identity. Take one produced kind of chairs for example, they all look the same and have no personality. We, as humans, have all the same skeleton but  all appear differently, we all have our own personality. A  chair seems to have only a skeleton since they appear to be all the same. So what if this could change? What if identical chairs get their own identity and character?

The design I will create will be a collection of the same chair that every time gets an additional material which creates a new shape and therefore the chair will get a certain identity. The chairs will all have a different personality and create their own atmosphere. Since the chairs will all have their different character they will appear as being a living organism. The chairs will start to create their own world which will let you to escape the everyday life for a moment. Parts of the chair will still be familiar and therefore comforting while the additional element will create a new world. By manipulating the chairs it will change their characteristic, shape, function and use.

With this collection I want to critique the furniture without personality and our monochrome way of living. My designs always have this critique point in them while introducing also an aspect of laughter.

I will do experiments of how to manipulate a normal chair. How could each chair has his own identity?

Sketches Identity Chair collection

Chair

Chair 1: Lean back Chair

Chair 2: Hug Chair



Chair 3: Barefoot Chair

Chair 4: Head Chair

Chair 5: Communication Chair

Manipulating Foam

Examples of foam furniture

Old fashioned furniture design with foam

 

Experiments of manipulating the foam while using different crafts and techniques.

With knitting an elastic wire the foam gets a shape

The foam gets its shape by giving it a skeleton with chicken wire

Making cushions with compressible foam

Foam woven in chicken wire

Vacuum foam woven in chicken wire

Foam Experiments

Breathing element

Vacuum foam + viscose fabric





Foam layers of different density/ compressibility/ structure on top of each other

Cut holes in foam à density changes à easier to transform

Vacuum drawn foam, has skin texture







Painted foam

Foam dipped into candle wax à hard top layer

Foam with silicone + Holes in foam and silicone