The project is about designing and making a chair using our original ideas. It requires us to make a chair using wood as the main material and use wooden joineries as the major connection method. The final production of the chair will have to combine functionality and aesthetics and fit body well.
The objective of the project was to make a chair using wood as the main material and using wooden joineries as the major connection method.
I think about the concept of comfort in this project. People have different ideas about comfort. For a lounge chair, I believe most people think that the softness of the cushion defines how comfortable this lounge chair is. But to me, what intrigues me the most about the lounge chair is the I get to feel secure and inclined and I believe those emotions can be suggested by a series of movement of the chair. So my challenge was to design a chair using mainly wood to make a lounge chair that recreate the feeling of lying down and the sense of security without very sophisticated technologies.
The upper part of the chair is made with many pieces of triangular shaped birch plywood and they are all connected with piano hinges so it can flex. As you lie down, the backrest will incline with your movement and the sides of the chair will come up and "wrap" around you and serve as two armrests. And I think that the process of wrapping around really suggests the feeling of security and warmness. And I designed a headrest using a piece of bent walnut to give contrast to the main body of the chair. And the headrest will give users' head enough support so they stay comfortable. The base part is made with cherry using mortises and tenons and was crafted very carefully so it stays stable.