Chair Mural: Design Preview

The chair mural is a functional piece of art. When folded flat, it can be laid against the wall as a decorative mural. When folded into its chair form, It can be used as a piece of furniture.

Form:

To start I’ll describe my inspirations. I needed a folding chair that folded as flat as possible, so I did some research, and come up with the three designs above. They all function as chairs, but also fold completely flat. The design that I chose to go through with was the Robert Van Embriqs (the one in the center) because of its uniformity (which I feel would be good for a mural), its many pieces (which also would break up the mural when in “chair” form resulting in a unique design), Its minimal hardware, but also just its coolness factor.

To start out, I drew some sketches of the form to get a general idea of scale (see above). I examined the original chair and noticed that I would have to connect the pieces at the ends with a through rod, and in the middle by some sort of flexible hinge. I also noticed that the pieces were about 1in wide and there were roughly 36-40 pieces across the chair. It also seemed to be 5ft tall when flat given some other images I reviewed. I found strap for the hinges which I will attach with screws. I took a trip to home depot to see what my options for wood are. What I found was that they don’t make 1×1 square stock wood (at least not at home depot), but they do make 1in thick plywood. I am scheduled to speak with Josh Colyer at the Idea forge to see if he has Ideas for sourcing/fabricating this wood. I also saw that Home Depot already has threaded rods at 3ft so I think I’m good to that end (no fabrication necessary).

The next step was to determine the lengths that I need. I started by making a model of one piece. This was pretty simple and I also added the home for the through rod. I then imported the piece into an assembly (multiple times) and used equations to vary the lengths of the rods. This was very difficult and I think that I didn’t do it in the most efficient way, but it worked, and I made it so I was able to modify certain variable to change the design. I messed with the variables until I got the form you see above. From here, I converted the lengths of the pieces into a table (see below):

Essentially I have 70 total pieces in which there are 35 sets of 2 pieces which each total 5ft in length. Knowing this will influence how I fabricate the pieces.

Aesthetic:

The aesthetic design that I will use as the mural is still up in the air. Originally I wanted to do an early American tattoo design (see above), but after some sketching of different themes and styles (see above), I think a more abstract form will look best when in “chair” form. The reasoning behind this is that a more abstract or modular design will still look intentional when broken up whereas imagery will most likely just look like cut up imagery when broken up (which is not what I want, I want the chair to maintain an aesthetic in both forms). Now I’m thinking of a pattern similar to a topographic map to give off an interesting texture, and I think this could pair well with wood burning.

In either case, I think I will oil the wood and seal it with shellac or a lacquer.

TimeLine:

Above is the timeline for my project. It describes what I’ve done to date, what my future plans are, and some more detail with my fabrication process.

Presentation:

See above for the presentation video.

Images:

Products by AMBIVALENZ Fläpps Folding Chair Collection | Archiproducts

Robert van Embricqs on Behance

Folding Chair by Leo Salom – MOCO LOCO

American Traditional Tattoos: History, Meanings, Artists & Designs (tattmag.com)