Sarah Mandell - Thesis

In what ways can the design process begin? Material can be matched to form, but form also can flow from a chosen material. My senior thesis project at Maryland Institute College of Art was the investigation of the process of designing a chair. I began with extensive research in furniture design, focusing mainly on chairs made from unusual materials. I then used this research to choose four specific materials (felt, metal, wood, and rubber) to learn about through hands-on experience in the furniture shop where I was interning. I did lengthy material trials with each material in order to understand what it was capable of, keeping in mind that I would eventually be building a full-scale chair from it. After each material had been investigated, I applied that knowledge to designing four chairs that would each use only one of the materials I had chosen. Each had definite strengths and weaknesses, so I combined the best attributes of each chair and designed one chair that used each of the four materials. The final step in my thesis project was to build this chair full-scale, which required a greater learning of all of the technical and construction skills that I had only briefly been exposed to thus far.

I created a chair with function, including a sliding hook inside the back of the chair for hanging and concealing a coat. The open back is made from laminated bent plywood attached to a plywood frame. The seat and legs are also plywood framed and use 26 gauge wire woven to create an open mesh. Liquid rubber was poured into a mold over the wire, which created the seat and back cushion. The shapes of the rubber cushions were determined by the placement of the human body on the chair. I handmade felt and attached it to the feet and bottom of the chair to allow for better sliding mobility. By conducting an in-depth investigation into furniture design, I experienced the design process from concept through construction and challenged all of my creative interests along the way.