Unconventional Furniture Collection

Space/Materiality:Culture

Bridge Project #3:Unconventional Furniture Collection
(Social Ecological Space-The handmade and human interaction)

“Elemental Chairs”

Phase One

Research

The element of Earth is the sole purpose of all elements seeing as it is the basis of our existence. To the Greeks it was most commonly associated with the qualities of heaviness, matter and the terrestrial world. Inspired by geometric shapes and fluency, Earth has been known to be the representation of life and death. A model of every life cycle in existence.
The element of Fire can be helpful, but it can be dangerous as well, depending on whether a situation is controlled or not. Essentially, fire creates three things: light, heat, and smoke. Inspired by the heat aspect, the seat will resemble the appearance of a melting candle and have a heated seat.
The element of Air is described as being very free and flowing. This element is invisible but is important to all the other elements. Air is made up of many different gases. Air is a perfect mixture for survival. There is mystery about where the air and wind comes from or where it goes especially because it is ethereal and invisible. Air has volume and takes up space. I am going to make a seat that is related to all these attributes. I will make a beanbag chair. Bean bag chairs are very free formed yet have volume.
The element of Water is something that we need to survive, is covering 70 percent of the earth’s surface, and furthermore is 60 percent of what we are all composed of. Even though water is so essential to all walks of life, it is an element we forget about it’s importance in our lives often. I was inspired by how organic and free flowing water is, and from that created a chair which is representative of the life that water brings to all walks of life.

Personal Research

     While picking our culture my team and I put a lot of thought into our brainstorming process. We came up with a bunch of different ideas separately, all of which could be the theme of our unconventional furniture collection. However there is one culture that we all ended up agreeing with very quickly, Nature. Nature seemed like a perfect subject to focus on especially since we are apart of The New School community which strives to maintain sustainability. After settling with Nature I decided that to be able to bring a unique collection together we should each focus on one of the four elements of Nature. Seeing as I was truly looking forward to working with wood for this project I decided to focus on Earth. Lauren choose Air, Sarah choose Fire and Chloe decided upon Water. We felt that each of these would give us a bit of a challenge to work and each would be able to represent our senses of style and aesthetic yet still work together as a collection.

     Earth is a part of Nature that I feel we all carry a lot of information about however to be able to transform the idea of “Earth” into unconventional furniture I had to take a totally different approach and brainstorm from the beginning. When Earth comes to my mind I think of forests and fields. Therefore I started to think of woods, vines, flowers, colors of the leaves, etc. I decided to research rustic furniture because this type of style typically focuses on saving the original formations of it’s materials. Rustic furniture is a type of style that although popular it is not common in regular households and apartments. I found this style and approach to furniture design extremely interesting and inspiring. For my element of Earth I want to take a rustic approach very similar to what I’ve seen during my research. However at the same time I want to make my chair fit in with the outside style of nature. This project will not only give me a chance to further work with wood but if I have the ability I  think it’ll definitely be a different experience for me to work with natural woods like logs and branches.

Group Brainstorming:

Our Mood Boards:

  

 

Sketches:

Phase Two

Best Design & 3D Sketches:

Mock Ups:

  

Phase Three

Material Selection: pink foam, plaster fabric, modeling paste, upholstery remnants, thread, pillow filling, twine, plastic leaves, acrylic paint

Process & Process Photos:

      

    

    

Finished Earth Chair:

      

  

Group Stylized Photos:

 

Presentation Slide:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1CZKOy23Xtz54r328njv-nlDrtX6rKiHTBeig5JUnHS0/edit?usp=sharing

 

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