Chair Space

Cambridge, Massachusetts USA 2011

Academic Work: Harvard University, Graduate School of Design

Course Instructor: Mack Scogin

 

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The design of architectural space is necessitated by personal instinct and (radical) imagination. This project takes on a nonconventional approach by redefining encounters with familiar objects.

 

Two chair icons, Chair_One by Konstantin Grcic and Tulip Chair by Eero Saarinen are approached as raw material for design intervention. Chair_One is transformed from a purely functional chair into an abstract object, a fixture, with aesthetic qualities that surpass all functional aspects. In contrast, Tulip Chair retains its function, however its fundamental concept of movement, the swivel mechanism, is taken into another level by freeing it of its anchor: the seat swings from its pedestal.

 

This was followed by the conception of a space, or a spatial experience, that reacts to and commands the abstract use of the chairs. The compilation of all proposed spatial constructs resulted in, as a third stage of the project, a collective spatial composition superimposed on the rooftops of a city model, in this case the city of Boston.