4-POINT CHAIR NOW YELLOW

i had the frame powdercoated. the original idea was to go for an off-white or some other similarly subdued colour, however it turned out yellow was the way to go according to the powdercoater. this ended up working really well, the brightness looked good against the light wood and before i knew it my three chairs made up a CMY colourway.

4-POINT CHAIR / MORE BUILdING

circular inserts/features were added to the front legs. the intention of these is to highlight the way legs/arms penetrate right through the wooden seat. this is important as it is a development considered from the way the legs and fittings were drilled into (and broke off) the original chair.

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it was hard work to make the holes in the wooden base line up with the legs and arms. it required a lot of stuffing around and re-cutting of the base. in the end the base was cut into numerous pieces, which somewhat defeated the purpose of the minimal legs but still looked ok.

an extra support bracket was welded to the front. unneccesary perhaps, but in place to support weight at the front of the chair where it would receive the most.

more healing chair work

the chair base and back were cut down to the minimum they could be.
this base size has been defined by the width of the legs, which now attach to the very edge.

the back rest has been reduced significantly, it now just indicates the direction of the chair really

 

with the large backrest and seat now gone, and the legs fixed and reinforced the chair has a completely different feel. it is hard, solid and compact, yet still retains its original form through its stylised legs

 

 where the blue chair was created by simply tracing the form, the pink stool took on its own form completely through an extension of the process. the final product was oddly shaped, hardly recognisable when compared to its original form, but strong and sturdy nonetheless. despite being simply a shell of its old self

 

although the two pieces compliment each other they are both distinctly different. where one has been minimised and simplified, the other has been built on and grown.

new chair concept

this new chair idea came from thinking about my original chair and the way all the legs and back support beams were fixed into the chair base. in total there were 10 holes drilled into it, and 10 individual parts attached, in total there are 15 separate parts which make up this chair! 4 legs, 3 leg braces, 1 base (this is actually made of three different pieces but i have just counted it as one), 1 back support, 6 back support braces. my idea was to try and simplify this as much as possible while still keeping some of the recognisable features (wide legs, large seat, legs etc drilled into it). i managed to get it down to 4 holes in the base, which function for the back rest and the legs at the same time. the legs and  back rest are made of just 2 bits of continuous pipe, bent and passed through the base - these two parts replace 11 separate bits of the original. out of sight, underneath the wooden base are 3 steel struts for support and extra strength, taking the total number of parts to 6.

more work on small stool ...need more firbeglass

chair drawings

material use development

in this next phase i take the idea of the materials involved further.


taking a regular 4legged stool. i cover it in plastic-wrap before casting with plaster bandage.
the next step is to fill with expanding filler and cover once more in the fibre-glass bandage.

creating a copy of the original stool, represented but now changed and defined by its new materials 

material trials

google search "how to fix a broken chair"

interestingly the first examples that come up are very similar to my chosen chair. 
this style of chair must have a serious history of being unreliable, easy to break and frustrating to repair.


http://www.woodworkforums.com/f11/fix-broken-chair-32425/
http://www.ehow.co.uk/how_7740719_fix-wooden-maple-chair-spindles.html

EXPLORATION OF CHAIR AND "HEALING" CONCEPT