Encircle
DR2013 Furniture Design I, 2018 Semester 1
NTU School of Art, Design and Media
NTU School of Art, Design and Media
Project: Portable furniture informed by the incompatibility between Western and Eastern customary lifestyles
Origins
Initial research took the direction of investigating the differences in parent-child relations between the Western and Eastern worlds, specifically the way in which mothers would carry and care for their young infant children. The two images below are representative of how mothers cared for the infants - the pram was more frequently observed in the Western world, illustrating rigidity, whilst Easterners tended to use a fabric cradle that exhibits a more flexible, embracing character.
Image credits: http://fiveminutehistory.com/vintage-baby-carriers-of-bygone-times/; National Archives of Singapore
Concept development
Putting these together, we were drawn to the idea of a physical manifestation of the sensory nostalgia of infancy. Would anyone be able to recall their physical experience of being an infant cared for by their mother? Otherwise, could we create something to convey this as a piece of furniture?
Thus, we began with the idea of a stool or chair that could reflect both characteristics. With wood as a primary material, that would showcase the Western character of rigidity, whilst we were inclined towards a textile seat that reflects the contrasting Eastern flexibility.
Many changes had to be made over the two month period we spent working on this project, resulting in the production of up to 3 physical mock ups before we could decide on the outlook of the physical furniture piece.
Our initial development showed that a mesh material that we found would work as it held up to 100kg of weight and could convey the mother-infant relationship, but the pendulous character of the mesh meant it did not harmonise with the strongly planar plywood we intended to use.
From left: 1. Final physical mockup - outward tapering of the structure welcomes and embraces the user, providing an elevating effect; 2. 4-legged mockup - flat, planar surfaces felt too stable and lacked dynamism; 3. 1st mockup - inward leaning structure led to a bottom-heavy visual language that did not work.
We went on to finalise this as our proof of concept and invited users to try out the prototype, using a makeshift seat made of braided twine and a cushion. We found that the structure had to be strengthened to reduce flexing to improve the user's confidence in the furniture.
We eventually moved on to consider weaving and ropework to create the final seating surface and explored Oriental weaving techniques. However, these did not really work out at the scale of the furniture, and we went with a macrame weaving technique.
The final piece was then made over the span of a week in the school's workshop, using a birch-based plywood that had a uniform face pattern. Finishing was done with natural tone Danish oil, lightly buffed down to provide a satin finish. The circular armrest is joined to the base with glued dowel joints, while the base structure is assembled with a cross-halving joint.
