Katydid Chair
This chair was built as part of a study abroad program for Scandinavian furniture design in Copenhagen. My goal was to make a semi-portable folding chair that is comfortable, complex, and visually interesting.
I spent a long time trying to get the mechanism for this chair to work, and figuring out how to make it sturdy. There’s a lot I still want to change about this chair, and in the future I hope to make a better version with a simpler folding mechanism and a more comfortable seat.
Students and young people often have to move furniture and all their possessions from place to place.
How can we design a comfortable, visually interesting, semi-portable folding chair for those who move often?
DIAGRAMS AND SKETCHES
Mechanism Exploration
First Model
- Front beam and bottom cross beam both disconnect with hooks, allowing the chair to fold flat.
- Arm rests flip up and rest on pegs, and the seat was a suspended cloth.
- The goal was for each piece to be staggered, allowing for no vertical overlap when folded.
Cardboard Prototype
- The profile of the chair in this version had to be shortened to fit constraints.
- Hooks were replaced with notches which rest on pegs off the ground.
- The structure of the chair is secured with tension from the seat attached to the back bottom cross beam.
PERSONAL WORKING DIAGRAM
MY FIRST CHAIR- FINALLY FINISHED
In the Woodshop
This was a very complicated process made more complicated by my lack of experience and the way each piece had to be a slightly different size.
If I were to do it over again, I would take care to make allowances in the initial design to make it more straightforward to manufacture.
BACK VIEW
FOLDED UP
Future Considerations:
There’s a lot about this design that I feel could be improved in future iterations. I would like to:
- Work with more models to come up with a mechanism that is easier to fold and doesn’t require two points to be disconnected.
- Create a more padded, comfortable seat design.
- Come up with a more cohesive, more visually interesting form language for all of the pieces to follow.
- Add the arm rests back in.
- Figure out how to make it fold completely flat in one dimension