The Morgan Felt Folding Stool brings origami and flat pack together in a piece of furniture. The felt is saturated with resin in a specific pattern to create rigid panels with flexible non-resined seams like a folded sheet of paper. This allows the felt to fold up into a stool or collapse flat for easy storage and transportation.The stool is made of 5mm Wool felt, Polyester resin. The folds are held together by Urethane and metal clips

The Morgan was inspired by practical applications of folding into products and furniture. It started as a folding project in a summer Origami class and continued working on it well after the class was over. I had self imposed constraints for this project from the initial stages to create a piece of furniture that collapsed flat, was easy to assemble, and made from simple materials. Additionally, I received a challenge from my professor that I worked under to find a single material that could act as the rigid panels and flexible joints. This was in response to many current designs that were using a lamination or joining of two different materials, one flexible and one rigid, to accomplish folding. This became one of the unique defining challenges to the rest of the project.

Before this stool I had created a folding chair. It was made from plywood panels that were seamed together by a canvas strapping to create flexible seams. Its focus was a chair which folded together and was ergonomic despite having no padding to the seat. It was comfortable to sit in but what I learned was it had not been as simple for a regular person to fold together as I originally thought and once the shape was flat, it became very large and cumbersome to do anything with. So one major constraint from my perspective was a compact flat shape and easy to work with. Not only does folding give it a unique structure and look but the flat pattern is practical and can fit in a closet or against the wall out of the way.

I started by researching many of the current material uses that people had in their folding products or furniture. Many were laminating or joining of flexible and rigid materials, a few examples of formed plastics were also found. These gave insight into the material approach, many following the approach of paper folding. A more rigid material is taken and the fold lines or creases are defined into that material. One inspiration which produced promising results was taking the opposite approach of that, find a flexible material and explore ways to stiffen it in a specific configuration to create a foldable pattern.

Thick fabrics were a primary source of exploration, specifically felt with its advantage of non-woven properties. Polyester resin was impregnated into the felt to stiffen a specific pattern. The challenge to this resin application was controlling where we did not want the resin to go. Attempts at controlling those seams were made with materials that would resist the resin or compressing the fibers so resin would not seep between the threads. In the end, using conventional masking tape would resist resin from soaking through the top and a wider tape was used to compensate for any seeping under the tape lines.

Additional consideration was put into how the stool folds together. It needed to be a process people could understand and not require lots of hardware. Various options were explored from lacing to fastening folds together. Clips were used because of minimal material use were the simplest to use. These clips for the feet and center hold folds together, plus the feet clips contact the floor instead of the felt to reduce wear.

The Morgan is a valuable piece for its approach to material use. A pattern is defined in a single flat sheet of material by impregnating resin and cutting the outline, which is then shipped flat and assembled by the user. It is nostalgic of Origami because you fold to build your furniture. Also, it surprises people that such an approachable and soft material like felt not only folds like paper but also becomes the structure to their furniture. The aesthetic which you get from felt folding is approachable compared to traditional Origami. It has very soft transitions along its fold lines compared to the very sharp and angular paper folds. Lastly, felt can be separated from resin, ground up, and recycled into new felt sheets just like paper.