SusTransat Dining Chair for V&A Exhibition Road Day of Design Exhibition
The V&A in partnership with homeless charity 999 Club made an open call for makers to create dining furniture for a food waste feast, using materials salvaged from the museum’s waste shipping crates. Taking Eileen Gray’s 'Transat Chair' as a starting point, I used salvaged birch ply and timber to form a frame, and donated ‘vegan leather’ for an upholstered seat. This was exhibited alongside other makers' work as part of the Day of Design at Exhibition Road - for the finale of London Design Festival. It has now been donated to a London charity.
The original Transat Chair was designed for passengers taking transatlantic voyages on board the cruise liners of the 1930s. It's essentially a super-padded deck chair.
Made from a shipping crate, the frame of the SusTransat chair might have travelled on a far less glamorous container ship. Our aspriations are still shaped by notions of luxury and indulgence that are costing us the world. While drawn to the humility and utility of this re-used ply, I'm prone to Champagne socialism and wanted to enjoy the comfort of the padded seat, too.
The beech plywood marked by fittings that have been removed, and carries remnants of lettering printed by the shipping company. The frame was cut by hand, adding a few imperfections of my own! The joints are an invention and may be an affront to traditional joinery but I find them pretty enough in a practical way. Overall I'm pleased with the quality and robustness of this prototype.
