HELIX CHAIR

Furniture Design / Prototyping / CMF Design

Status: Ongoing Concept • 2022

Capturing the essence of movement in a static form, the Helix Chair transforms the act of sitting into an experience of suspended animation.

1.0 // Approach & Concept

Inspired in part by the occasional lull in a billowing line of smoke coming from the late night burning of an incense stick, the project set off as an exploration into spatial expressions of ephemerality and tension. Twisting ribbons of vapor are translated into lines of flowing metal. The final form is one contained at the brink of motion, yet frozen gleamingly still.

Concurrently designing for distributed manufacturing with an emphasis on employing standard material sections and sheets, the approach was heavily informed by explorations into how these stock components could be morphed into forms and finishes that captured the intended fluidity.

2.0 // Ideation

The first explorations began with an explosive spray of forms and concepts onto a 10m roll of paper.

2.1 // Distilled Ideas

Reining in the immense web of threads, three ideas were developed.

3.0 // Prototype 0.1 – 0.5

A further exploration in small card models.

4.0 // Back to the Drawing Board

Unsatisfied with the directions taken so far, a refocus on the initial values of the project brought about another design concept; more simplistic in its elegance and more closely married to the methodologies of distributed manufacturing.

4.1 // Material Explorations

Refining the concept through a series of physical, formal experiments on the material and spatial qualities of twisted sheet metal.

4.2 // Prototype 1.0

Exploring a variation of the design with a wooden seat component, prototype 1.0 was a roughly 1:5 scale study model made for testing form, materiality and manufacturing processes.