This page is documenting my Beta project where I was making quick sketches with models in response to try and resolve an idea or concept.
As movement and interdependence have been coming up regularly in my research I decided that I would go to the workshop and create some quick designs that have either movement or interdependence.
My mind first went to joinery when thinking of interdependence within woodworking. Joinery is just two pieces of wood that rely on each other to hold together, similar to how I want a furniture piece to rely on its user. I also thought of the 'Codependent' piece as inspiration, as it had two objects dependent on each other to stand. I felt it was easiest to think of how two objects interact first rather than furniture and its user.
In response to this I created an extremely long version of a dovetail joint that creates a a chair frame. These two pieces of wood are interdependent on each other as they supply one another with stability and support.
Although I felt this did what I was intending, I felt it to be too simple and not creative enough, so I carried on making.
The second model I made was a wooden tambour. I got the inspiration from the piece 'The Body', as I thought they had similar forms and move in the same way. They are both dependent on the user to create the form and would be a blank canvas if not interacted with.
This suddenly became my main focus of experimentation.
Normally tambours are used as doors and just simply slide open and closed. However, I didn't want to use this door scenario technique and wanted to change its context. By simply changing its normal axis to lying flat, it completely changed its function. This change made it resemble some kind of table.
I like that this model was completely flat and useless when not touched. Then through the use of user interaction it became something more than a flat piece of wood. I fell in love with this theory of the object relying on its user to become the furniture piece it was meant to be and this was the driving force throughout my next set of models.
Below is an example of me slowly, one by one, turning in the end pieces. Just through this simple interaction I created 6 different table top / bench forms from just one model. This idea of customisation and being able to change its form was something that I wanted to explore more through experimentation. This model that was initially made to test movement, ended up linking with interdependence. This model is dependant on user interaction to become a furniture piece because without, it is just a plank of wood.
I took these two models to a tutorial to show what I have discovered though my experimenting, hoping to get some feedback and outsiders perspectives of my work.
My main takeaways from this tutorial were that the wooden tambour is where my focus should lie at the moment.
An idea that we discussed was using wedges to hold specific angles between the wooden strips, these would allow this frame to create some more unique forms and still allow the user to have full customisation in the forms they want to create. By using the tension created by the tambour, with the wedges being all on one side they would be pinched into place and held still when weight would be placed on it, in theory. This idea still held the interdependence theme but instead of the piece being dependant on the users body, it shifted to the piece being dependant on the wedges.
I also felt that with the fabric being stuck on just one side of the tambour it limited the amount of forms my model could create. With it only being able to turn one way all of its forms were very table-esque and I didn't want to be limited to one furniture piece this early on. We discussed a way to combat this and came up with the idea of having fabric in patches swapping from one side to the other.
Another quick experiment I wanted to try was cutting the tambours in two directions instead of just one and see if that allows me to create more interesting forms.
From this feedback I headed to the workshop and made some new variants of tambours.
Firstly, I created the 2 directional cut tambour. After making this model and playing around with it to see what forms it could create, I realised it was practically the same model as before. This was because it couldn't bend in both directions at once, just one at a time.
A takeaway from this piece was that if I had created a more extreme version of this model, for example a 3 block by 20 block model, then it may have come up with some more interesting forms than the very simple form that I made.
From my feedback I then created wedges. I cut these wedges to 25 degrees each so that they were all even.
These wedges worked exactly as I had hoped they would and allowed me to not be limited to 90 degree turns anymore, allowing for more creative forms to be made. There was enough tension between the wooden strips to grip the wedges into place when being pressed on. A big fear of mine was for the wedges to not have enough friction and pop out when pressure was applied. However, I did discover later on that this happens with bigger wedges.
I went on to make some 45 degree wedges to create different sized bends and after doing this I struggled to keep them in place. I think that not enough pressure could be applied when the gap was bigger and it was causing them to slip out when pushed down. None of the smaller wedges had this issue. This meant that if I was to pursue this idea further it would just have to be with the smaller wedges.
While interacting with the wedges in the tambour I realised that flipping the tambour over so the fabric side is facing up, creates a constant level of pressure to be forced onto the wedges making them lock into position.
This constant pressure was a perfect way to lock the model into a fixed shape and was something I was happy to discover. This allowed me to experiment in different ways with its form, allowing it to change from sitting on the floor to being hung off a surface.
From this discovery and feedback from my previous tutorial, I merged the ideas and created a tambour specifically designed to hang off a ledge with fabric on both sides.
This hanging tambour worked as I expected, holding its form while hanging because of the wedges. The fabric on both sides allowed the tambour to turn both ways, hooking it over a ledge.
As you can see the fabric is red in this model. After speaking with a tutor we discussed aesthetically bringing all of its components together and making a spectacle out of the smaller parts. An easy way to do this is with a colour scheme, so for this model I coloured the fabric and wedges red in order to show they are linked together and use one another in order to function. I think this worked well. However the ink on the fabric ran when trying to glue it down. This is something I would need to consider if I came back to this idea later on in my project.
While making this model I did an experiment with the fabric and tried to use as little as possible to save on materials. To do this I used fabric strips instead of fabric covering the whole thing. This was successful when I had two strips on either end of a face. However, if the fabric was just one strip in the middle then it would loose some of its stability and cause it to slant when used.
The structure hanging off a ledge, limited me on what I would be able to create for my final outcome as its a very niche form. The only furniture pieces I would be able to create with this form is shelving units and I had hoped to make a larger furniture piece. I knew I had come to a slight dead end with this form and to move on and try something else, as this is what the beta project was for.
As it was sill early on in the project I didn't want to just focus on one potential model as I was quite invested in the tambour idea. I thought to myself to make a new model that doesn't involve a tambour to have more variation and try different models while still in the beta project phase.
This design was created to move with the users body and to be able to be adjusted. I was playing around with the form of the model by just sketching potential forms on the side instead of committing to one form so early on.
This design adjusts its position by having the top bar moving freely. This allows the chair to move depending on the size of the person using it.
Although I like this design I feel as if it is not strong enough and doesn't quite fit with my aim for this project, which is to create a furniture piece that is interdependent with its user as it can still be a chair while not interacted with. I'm hoping to create something that doesn't even resemble a furniture piece until you interact with it.
After this model I moved back to creating different iterations of my tambour models as I still felt that it answers my brief the strongest out of all my experimentation so far.
This tambour variation was originally an experiment to see what happens if I connected both ends of the tambour together to create a circle. With just the circle tambour I realised that it will just fall in on itself as it had no support or stability. So I decided to create small MDF circles out of scrap wood to see if they will hold the tambour up. This was a very successful experiment as the tambour not only held its shape but also could roll, adding movement to my design. This element of movement started to make my design resemble tank tracks.
This also linked to interdependence because the form cannot be held without someone placing the inside supports, creating interdependence between the tambour and small wooden circles. Although this isn't the same as my original idea of the piece being dependant on the user, it still has elements of it coming though and I'm sure that with more development this will become more of a key feature.
All of this experimentation was leading up to an end of the Beta project presentation, which was to show all of our experimentation and key findings in order to help us discover the direction we want to go with our projects during Unit X.
To the left you can see my notes taken from feedback from this presentation and how to approach Unit X.
What I took away from was that the rolling tambours was the most interesting piece I've made so far, with its simplicity while still delivering an interesting outcome. In order to eliminate the need for the inside wheels I could try and implement elastic around the outside of the loop causing tension and hopefully making it stand by itself.
My tutors also wanted to see me experiment with 1:1 scale models to get a better understanding on how my designs and materials would function on a larger scale.
Also pinching is a big problem in my models when the tambours close together. I need to explore how I will combat this or highlight this feature.
