Documenting My Furniture Progress

When designing my "chair" I had the idea of simplicity and functionality, but also wanted it to be unique. Then the idea of being able to change the chair with ease came up. most people are going with a rigid design, but I wanted a little more so I thought of making a bench, that if pulled apart, a more comfortable seat would be revealed. The prototype model looks like this.

The tow long pieces sticking through the back serve two purposes, to act as a guide and to prevent the seat from collapsing inward. the white piece between the sections, Is the more comfy seat, my Idea is to make it out of a tough fabric that will hold up a person, but will still fit with the whole design of the bench. 

My inspiration actually came from a little .GIF image that I saw showing a man taking what looked like a small chair, but he sets it down and pulls on the side turning it into a large bench. I unfortunately can't find the image to show but I found a similar image that matches what I saw. 

honeycomb-cardboard-498x377.jpg

During the whole process of modelling in sketch up, I didn't really have any issues, but my only concern what that I was making it a little too simple and bland and it wouldn't really work, when I did make it, I noticed that if I left it as it was, the sections would fall over when some one sat in it, so I added little slots for a 2X4 to fit in, so it would then keep it stable. aside from that, I had no other problems with it.

wikiseat final post

During my construction of my own wikiseat I had experienced many things and learned much more, both about the design process as well as just basic construction. But along with those successes I also had struggle and failure. I'll start with my struggles since those came before success when building. when I had first started holding nothing but the chunk of metal that was given and the thought of the instructions and the possibilities. for the longest time I had an idea of what I wanted, but no real idea of how to do it, after a few weeks I still only had the catalyst and an Idea but only had a week or two left to build it. Soon after I alerted my father about my struggle and he almost  immediately took me to buy some supplies. After I got some supplies I still only had a week and no top for the seat and the waiting game continued and I kept telling myself that I would do it at lunch times with the help of a friend but the idea kept slipping from my mind every time lunch rolled around, and soon enough I had about a day left. I went to my father again and told him of my problem and I finally finished building the seat.

This is what the final product looked like, when I had finished the top with my dad he threw out the idea of putting some kind of cushion on it, followed by upholstering it with jeans. I wanted to make it as aesthetically pleasing as I could so I went with it. Afterwards I thought it looked great and took it to class the next day.

If I had to do this again I would set this project as my priority and not forget so often, I would also try to get it done as soon as possible so I have less time to worry and more time to relax and not have to worry. So I would simply do it a lot sooner than I did with this one. 

I had learned a bit about myself, I had learned that I'm lazy and forgetful, but other than that I learned that if I start it, and I really start working on it, I can get some pretty cool things accomplished. I am very proud that I had actually finished the seat and how well it turned out. I had accomplished what I set out to do, and it came out rather well. The feeling I got when making this seat for someone else was, a bit exhausting, doing so much work for something that I may never use, but in the end it feels nice to see them so glad about something that you made for them. That is really my story about how I built this seat, and for any others that plan on doing this project, please finish this project as soon as you can, don't rush, but don't spend too much time on it either, if you do so, it'll turn out great and you have more time to relax.