Lounge Chair

I came up with the idea to design this lounge chair at the university’s workshop while I was cutting foam objects with a hot-wire machine. The intriguing shape of these small objects inspired the unique silhouette design of the chair with its large supports at three extremities and the slim central body. This personal project is an exercise that I have been working on to learn and practice the process of furniture design through its different design stages including concept sketching, building small-scale prototypes and designing for manufacturing. As part of the design process, I studied the chair’s ergonomics and its structural integrity. I methodically learnt the different characteristics and uses of aluminium alloys, tempers and stainless steel as well as their designation systems and mechanical properties. I applied this knowledge to run several nonlinear finite element analysis on Fusion 360 to analyse the chair behaviour under stress and improve its weak structural areas. I aim to achieve a Safety Factor of 2 and then manufacture a full-scale prototype.