Funny Faces Children's Chair
For this project I worked with a small group of students to design a chair for a child out of one 48” x 80” sheet of cardboard. We focused on a modular design that took advantage of a child’s inherent desire to build and create for themselves.
Inspiration
I tried to expose myself to as much imagery as possible related to the topic at hand. Obvious places to look included researching children’s furniture and cardboard structures. Additionally, I researched interactive play spaces, paper folding techniques, and collapsible package designs. This extensive preperation allowed me to make better-informed decisions when creating my own design concepts.
Concepts
We worked as a team to come up for several different possible designs for the chair. Below are a few of the concepts that I presented to the group. (click to enlarge images)
Developing the Design
After selecting the modular design above to be our main direction, we worked to develop the design further. We looked for ways to connect the modules together and a way to make the design more interavtive and fun. We decided to use rubber bands as a way to connect the modules together. Simple circles on the top of each module seemed boring though, so fun and silly faces were suggested as a way to make the chair more fun and interactive for children.
Through hand sketching and skech models, we investigated different ways to create the chair with the limited amount of material available to us. This pattern, while technically possible, used the available surface area very inefficiently.
We developed a pattern that allowed us to create five full modules on the sheet of cardboard. We also took the direction of the corrogations into consideration to make the chair as structurally sound as possible. A simple tabbing system was used fit the pieces together as easily as possible. The faces were then cut from the extra pieces of cardboard.
The Final Design
User Testing
A group of children were invited to come to the studio to test out the chairs the entire class had created. The chairs were put in an empty room where they were allowed to interact with the chairs without bias. Later, we were allowed to ask them what they thought of our design.