Saturday 28 April 2012

Materials



Ive decided to use plywood for my final design, as it can be moulded very easily which will be a key factor for my design as there are lots of curves. Plywood is also very strong and can be finished in many ways. The image below is an example of how well it moulds especially curvacious shapes like this magazine rack. i have also chosen this material as it is in my opinion a very organic and calm material, therefore linking to the emotion which ive tried to combine into my design.



For the legs if decided to go with stainless steel as again it can be moulded easily is a very elegant looking material and is very strong.



For the spine i have also decided to use stainless steel as it is easily molded an again is very strong and looks very elegant.



Physical Model

 First i decided to make a very simple model to see what my limitations were with how thin i could cut the wood on the band saw before it split, this also was a test of how the curves would look in wood and how i could model them.




Here is my final physical model, i cut the wood on the band saw which made it possible to get the nice curves, i then simply glued the metal spine plate to the wood followed by the legs which are also metal.











Final Design


 Here is my final design, it has got a very elegant side profile with continuos flowing forms throughout. it has a spine flowing through the centre of it which connects the back rest to the seat and the bottom panel.
 The legs slot nicely into the flowing curve of the body, they will be screwed into the seat.
 This is a nice image which shows of the flowing elegant curves through the design.





 The renders above show how there will be a slot cut out of the seat, back rest and bottom panel. the spine will simply slot into this area, holding all pieces in place, the will be glued into place.



 Here shows how two supportting rods will run accross he seat to add stability, making the seat much stronger. these rod will be welded to the legs and the spine.
This shows how the legs would simply be screwed to the seat.

Thursday 19 April 2012

More Designs

Working from the Initial research material, which was the movement photography, i have worked on a few designs, these designs are some of my favourites, ive worked on the main body of the chair being very curvy like most of the forms which i discovered in my research here are some of the designs and development.







This design is using the form which i really like for the main body, in this case it would be in clear perspex as it will show the framework of the chair very well and will set othe design off. this design simply has a main spine running through the middle of the chair which rests on the floor at the back and adds extra stabillity to the two legs which are on either side and are connected to the outside of the seat, with the spine it gives the impresion that the chair should be rocking, making it add to the movement aspect of the design.





With this design ive simply add two stainless steel legs which have a nice elegant curve to them, the body has been kept similar to the previous design as i really like the flowing form as i think it is a very elegant form. In the next design ive carried the leg along the shape of the chair, these legs would be screwed into the seat, with added metal rods running in between the legs. Ive added a few renders which ive done on rhino so i could show a little more detail of each design.





After doing this design i realised that it would be quite difficult to bend the wood in one whole piece of material. i would look very nice in perspex though, as you can see here.




But after considering the shape and the possibillity of bending the material whether it be wood or perspex, i decided to change the design slightly by slitting the main body into segment.




 By splitting the design into segments it makes it much easier to be manufactured whether it be wood or perspex, even though its been split up it still has a very nice elegant flow to it, and by adding a metal spine to the design gives it another feature which is flowing right through the middle of the design adding stabillity to the chair and holding the peices together. I even stripped it right back and took away a segment at the base of the chair, making it very simple and honest but still holing that flowing form from the previous designs.