Ergonomic Testing
What should a dining chair feel like?
15 +
Ergo-box Test Subjects
30 +
Test variations
19
Analogous Observations
Seat Height
Seat Depth
Seat Width
Back Angle
Back Height
Ideation
Envisioning a modern bamboo dining chair and finding inspiration
Throughout my time in design, I have always gravitated toward early Bauhaus work, specifically the home furnishing that came with it. The cantilever chair was first developed by Marcel Brauer and Mart Stam, but traditionally with more conventional materials. I fell in love with the sleek cantilever and committed myself early on to a more ambitious engineering feat.
Another attractive feature of Bauhaus Design is the distinct "Truth To Materials". Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus school, believed materials should be used in the purest and strongest form with limited manipulation and strong natural personalities. Bamboo is one of the world's most distinct and stubborn materials, so Pairing it with manufactured and bent steel could lend to a very pronounced interplay of "Material Truth".
With tubular steel and raw natural bamboo, the concept was prone to adopting a very strong cylindrical design language. I decided to lean into this language with various securing/structural methods, like the steel rounds used in the planking and the filleted leather securing straps.
Material Research
How can this actually be done? Can it?
A second iteration of my design incorporated a unique method of bamboo manipulation where I scored the bamboo around 80% of its circumference and then snapped it so that one small piece of the shoot was able to maintain the originally desired visual "bend". Unfortunately, because of time and material limitations, this technique proved to be far too irregular and would snap and fracture down the middle of the bend, so I eventually had to steer away from the literal bend in my final design.
Construction
Meticulous craftsmanship needed to breathe life into the vision.
Once I had all of the pieces cut, bent, and holed, it was time to weld the frame together, Something I had never done before. By welding every joint, I was able to guarantee strong steel connections and a supportive structure for the user. I was also able to use an angle grinder on each connection to maintain the tubular structure of the steel. By strategically placing all of the welds at major connection points on the frame, I was able to cleverly cover up each weld with the leather straps used to secure the bamboo seat bed.
The final element of my design was the black leather feet and secure straps. I utilized my studio's laser cutter to cut my strap pattern, guaranteeing perfect replicable measurements and thread pathways for the feet. Each leather strap was tension fit and able to be removed and disassembled at any point, but they also covered each and every weld mark. the feet were sewn with leather thread and used to solidify a sturdy connection with the ground.
Final Design
