'Upside-Down', Children's chair with Sitting Firm
The concept was a high backed chair for a child that could be inverted and used as a dining chair. This is not a 'highchair', it is simply provides a more comfortable height for children whilst eating at a table or sitting with their friends.
Designed with a direct relationship to a previous chair made in the woods. A series of bodging projects enabled an immersive research process. For three days a team of designers were let loose in a factory full of specialised chair-making machinery. This time, with some specially prepared jigs.
Understanding through making
It is the deep appreciation of traditional skills that one acquires through making that is impossible to fully understand without hands-on experience.
crafty use of CAD data
One of the trickiest challenges of making 'Windsor' chairs, where solid wooden seat has spindles and legs round-tenoned (pushed into holes), is accurately drilling the holes. In preparation for the factory project, the chair was modelled in 3D on computer. The data enabled a jig to be cut on our in-house CNC router and proved extremely time-saving enabling three chairs to be made in three days.