Finally my chair for the ‘Chairs of the Alumni’ exhibition is finished. You will have noticed the lack of the promised progress reports. Just too much on I’m afraid but I have the photos and will publish some ‘making’ posts in weeks to come.
'Spare' chair - decent photos coming soon!
The exhibition which runs in parallel with the George Ingham Retrospective opens this Friday. Details are here. I’ve put up a skeleton website about George, the book about his work which has just been published and the two exhibitions here. I will be adding lots of material from the book and exhibitions over the next month or two.
Woven with dyed nylon mono-filament
Stay tuned.
September 29th, 2009
My design for a chair for the Chairs of the Alumni exhibition has ’sculpted’ joints where the stretchers intersect the legs and where the middle cross stretcher intersects the two side stretchers.
3d render showing the location of the joints
I’ve just completed the two joints where the stretchers meet. This progress post shows how these were made. However, as always seems to be the case, the most interesting stages are when you forget to pick up the camera - so you might have to join the dots yourselves.
1. Mortices are cut in the middle of the two side stretchers to receive the tenons from the cross stretcher.
2. The elements are rounded in a modified router lathe leaving ample blocks of material for making the joints. (I will describe the router lathe and the process in a later post.)
This pic shows the two side stretchers in the middle and the cross stretcher that joins them at the front of the picture.
leave stock for making the joints
3. The tenons cannot be cut before this stage because the router lather requires mounting holes to be centred at each end. The tenons are cut to fit the mortices and then tested and tuned.
The joints can then be fitted and glued. I have no pic of the gluing setup I’m afraid but effort was made to ensure the whole structure was flat and the elements were square.
the orientation of the elements to be joined
Cramping pressure was applied across the whole structure using custom-made clamping blocks that fitted the curve of the elements. Additional clamps were used to ensure the flange on each side of the joint was firmly pressed against the side stretcher.
the excess is roughly removed on the bandsaw
4. The excess material is carved, filed and sanded away leaving a smooth transition between the elements.
the shaped joint
the stretcher assembly
In the next installment I will show how the legs are shaped and then glued to this stretcher assembly.
August 16th, 2009
Well it was a long time ago that I promised to keep you up-to-date with my progress towards a chair for the Chairs of the Alumni exhibition. No updates (other than this general one) fortunately doesn’t mean no progress - although as always I wish I was further along the adventure.
In-progress design for alumni chair
The above image shows the current state of my design. This is a CG rendering that I hope gives a reasonable idea of what the chair will look like. At this stage I’m thinking of building it from Tasmanian blackwood so it will be a touch lighter in tone (at least initially) and slightly less warm in colour. The generously wide seat will be woven in a dark blue nylon mono-filament.
Rendered for form only
I use 3D modelling and rendering quite a bit as an additional tool for resolving designs. While it can sometimes be misleading about overall proportion and scale, it is always useful for visualising different woods and design details.
When making a completely new chair design however you always need to create a sturdy mock-up and get multiple people to sit in it to check and adjust the dimensions and angles for comfort and usability. The position and angle of the back rest in relation to the seat is usually the critical investigation. This rough prototype in pine was done very early in the design process. The seat is woven from the same blue nylon as the final chair will be.
A structural prototype used for ergonomic investigations
You might notice in the renderings that each joint of the substructure has a smooth transition between the elements. This is shaped after glue-up. Extra wood is left on each element where it joins another so that this transition can be created. I’m currently working out systems for accurately turning the cylinders of the stretchers between these blocks of extra wood.
June 21st, 2009
What makes the chair the pre-eminent object in furniture design?
Red Blue Chair c. 1923 by Gerrit Rietveld.
Morocco
The pinnacle of the great art disciplines, it seems to me, is always where the medium interacts with the human form. Architecture is judged in its relation to human scale and how it interacts with patterns of human behaviour.
Les Demoiselles d'Avignon by Pablo Picasso.
Alberto Giacometti
The human figure has always been the zenith of drawing, painting and sculpture.
Kendi (pouring vessel)
Textiles have their ultimate form when draped on the human body. Ceramics are born of human utility.
So with the chair. Other furniture such as tables, desks and beds are informed by human dimensions but are ultimately simple planes. The chair (with its derivatives like the stool and bench) is the only object that is so intimately intertwined with the human body.
This places demands on the design that don’t exist with other furniture. The relationship is not limited to comfort and good posture. The designer may intend to convey many other feelings and impressions. The chair may be designed to keep the occupant alert or relaxed, to enhance or diminish their status, to be welcoming or dismissive, etc.
In any of these cases however it is necessary to design in the context of understanding the human form. Designing a new chair always requires a full scale (and sturdy) mock-up. There’s no other way to be certain that the finished object will meet the ergonomic goals. Of course the human form varies greatly. When making chairs for a client, the mock-up allows the designer to test their chair against the body of the user. Care must be taken here because what seems to work well on first taking a seat may not be comfortable after sitting for an hour or so.
My first step in designing my ‘Alumni’ chair will be to take some initial dimensions (based on experience and preference) and make a mock-up that will allow me to vary seat height and angle, and the placement and shape of the back and arm rests.
I’ll show some progress towards this in the next chair post.
October 9th, 2008
An exhibition of the work of George Ingham is being planned for October 2009 - A Singular Talent: a retrospective exhibition of the work and teaching of George Ingham (1940 - 2003). In conjunction with this, another exhibition - Chairs of the Alumni: the ongoing narrative - is being organised. Former students of George (that includes me) are invited to exhibit a recently made chair.
To quote from the invitation: “The exhibition Chairs of the Alumni will draw on the intakes of the years 1983 to 2003 inclusive to serve as a vehicle through which George’s teaching might be celebrated. It is hoped that the contemporary pieces will underscore individual maturation, and in the exhibition they will be counterpointed by George’s own teaching pieces and drawings.”
So - there is my new project in a nutshell! It’s quite a while since I designed a new chair. In fact the last was these conversation chairs exhibited in 1997. Damn that’s a long time ago. So this challenge is overdue.
Conversation Chairs by Mark Woolston
I hope to take my readers along on this journey over the next 12 months - showing the design ideas, the ergonomic tests, the design resolution, the making, the catalogue photography - right through to the exhibition.
Hope you come along for the ride.
September 29th, 2008
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