Esquisse Three - 'Form vs Function'

This week we are doing scaled mock-ups of anything that can hold a human body. I chose to do sitting furnitures. I started by thinking about the form of chairs and what I could do to make it look unique, but then function is as important to take into account, because the user will be using this piece of furniture for a period of time.

I came up with 3 rough furniture mock-ups to explore this week's topic which is 'Form vs Function'.

Model 1

This piece of furniture, i tried playing with the flexibility of the balsa wood to make a curvier design with the wire supporting the shape. There could be a little bit more support on the seat are, but overall it is stable with weight.

Model 2

This next model is a backless chair with armrests. I like it because it is simple and strong. It might not be the most comfortable chair, but it's definitely good enough to be sat on for a shorter period and it looks good!

Model 3

This piece I was trying to create more comfortability on a wooden stool. That is why the 3 planks of the seat is quite flexible. The seat also has a curvy area to make sitting more comfortable. This piece definitely needs more refinement to make it outlook look less industrial and more inviting, by changing some of the wire features of the chair maybe... It still needs to go under further detailing.

More next week!

Esquisse Two - 'Locking systems'

This week, we tried our hands on different kinds of locking systems, using balsa wood and wire. No glue or fixings were used in this exercise. Here are the 5 I've come up with!

Locking System 01



Locking System 02




Locking System 03



Locking System 04



Locking System 05


This is it for now :)

Esquisse One_ Triangulation

For our furniture design assignment, we were asked to construct a five sided pyramid using only balsa wood and 1 mm wire. It was quite an interesting task since I have not used balsa wood in my model makings before. Therefore a few trials were needed to get a feel of the material.

I began with some sketches to get me started thinking about the form and the way the jointing were to hold the pyramid together, without the use of any other adhesives. Here is some of my sketches.

I decided then, to make my four triangular sides out of balsa wood and join it with the wire. I choose to do it this way because I was thinking it would be easier to make the pyramid size more accurate. Therefore, here are some pictures to show my final esquisse work.

THANK YOU!

B4U Furniture Design History

Marc Newson

“Good designers are geeks, bad designers are not geeks”, is quoted from the man himself during a BBC interview. He believes that to be a good designer is to have the desire to know things. This need of wanting to know every minute details of how things work is important to understand how to create things. His first design that got a lot of attention was the Lockheed Lounge chair, made out of hundreds of aluminium panels hammered onto a homemade fibreglass mould. This piece has a futuristic look to it with all the aluminium pieces, but it also exudes a warm modernist feel to it because we can see that it is a man laboured piece of art. His design’s reflects his love for the space age era, in a lot of his work.





Philippe Starck














The new transparent chairs designed by Phillipe Starck are possible because of the innovation in material. The La Marie chair is the first fully transparent chair, formed in a single mould. The use of an everyday material like polycarbonate, and making it as slim and light looking with complete transparency is amazing. His designs are mostly concentrated for mass production for access to many people. In a society where everything is technologically focused, styling of objects can attract people into buying a certain product. With products like furniture, the evolving of new processes and material is vital because it can make a difference in a success of a product.


Reference:

-Furniture, viewed 6th Mar, http://www.gagosian.com/artists/marc-newson/
-Furniture, viewed 6th Mar, http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/previous/marc_newson.asp
- Furniture, viewed 6th Mar, http://www.designboom.com/eng/interview/newson.html
- Furniture, viewed 6th Mar, http://www.designboom.com/portrait/newson.html
-About, viewed 6th Mar, http://designmuseum.org/design/marc-newson
-Furniture innovation, viewed 7th Mar, http://pinkappledesigns.co.uk/philippe-starck-furniture.html
-About, viewed 7th Mar, http://www.designboom.com/eng/interview/starck.html
-About, viewed 7th Mar, http://www.starck.com/

B4U Furniture Design History

Eero Aarnio

During the 1960's, there weren't many furniture's made with plastic material, whilst almost everything today is made out of this common material. Eero Aarnio's 'Globe' chair, Pastil and 'Bubble' chair reflects 'Pop' culture furniture in that decade. From these three chairs, I can see that he played mostly with organic forms and vibrant colours. The Globe chair that I saw in the NGV confirms that the manufacturing of this chair is using injection moulding with glossy finishing to add to the pop culture look. These pieces became icons because of the possibilities it created of making organic shapes easier to mass produce. I think his pieces are timeless, because it still looks modern now.




Pierre Paulin

This man considered design to be a mix of invention and industrial innovation. We can see by his furniture work, he is influenced a lot with sculptured shapes. His idea of furniture design is that it is primitive; therefore he experimented in new processes of manufacturing, to make it fresh and new. He played with materials such as new types of ofam and rubber from Italy, and also used lightweightmetal in his furniture's to create different experiences for users. These new materials creates a different type of feel to the users. This is because the foam and rubber are used to create rounder surfaces and curvier body for a more comfortable sitting.

Reference:

-About, viewed 5th Mar, http://www.eero-aarnio.com/1/Home.htm
-Furniture, viewed 5th Mar, http://www.eeroaarnio.com/
-Furniture work, viewed 6th Mar, http://www.bonluxat.com/d/pierre-paulin.html
-Furniture work, viewed 6th Mar, http://www.designaddict.com/design_index/index.cfm/fuseaction/designer_show_one/DESIGNER_ID/157/
-About, viewed 6th Mar, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/pierre-paulin-innovative-designer-who-helped-to-revolutionise-everyday-furniture-1767749.html

B4U Furniture Design History

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Mies van der Rohe was originally from an architectural background, who then started designing furniture's along the path of his career. One of his furniture is the Barcelona Chair which he designed during the building of one of his famous buildings, the German pavilion. The Barcelona chair is renowned for its light weight look in a period where chairs looked heavy and bulky. This is possible with the discovery of metal elasticity which allows the bending of tubular steel and also in an era where people are concentrating on mass producing furniture's. His work also shows a beginning of a simpler and more mordenized style of designing and manufacturing furniture.




Le Corbusier















There is a quote from someone saying that Le Corbusier's work is influenced by people and their surroundings. We can see that from the way he conducts his projects, whether it is furniture or architecture. Here I'm going to look in more detail in the LC4 chaise lounge chair. To me, this chair became popular at that time because of the chair's comfort and it's functionality. From a book that I read, I can see he took into consideration the ergonomic and anthropometrics of his users, which is something new at that time. The use of steelin this design, allows for a smoother curve for the reclining movement. The idea was derived from how soldiers used to rest lying down with their feet up againts a tree, with a knapsack under their heads, turns out to be medically recomended position and is a ver comfortable one.


Reference:

- Fischer, V 1997, The LC4 Chaise Lounge by Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand
- Glaeser, L 1977, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe: Furniture and Furniture Drawings from the Design Vollection and the Mies van der Rohe Archive