11.02.2012

Möbius chair


The Battery Conservancy
Americas Design Competition
Draw up a Chair

Azar, Gesche, Jon and Maria L.








“[...]the variety of human physique cannot with advantage be reduced to a single systematic statement.”
Joseph Rykwert, The Sitting Position

A chair for Battery Park should be more than just a resting point for a passing tourist.  Although it ought to work perfectly as an ordinary chair, it should also include attributes encouraging other interactions as well. We imagined a chair that was also a desk, a bench, a lounge chair or even a picnic table. Accommodating tourists, residents, and workers, this chair makes a place to rest alone or with others, enjoy a leisurely lunch, or have a small office meeting. 

This chair offers a comfortable chair for multiple body positions and body types, including the common sitting position. It encourages simple and varied configurations that allow for various postures or sitting encounters, functioning as an ordinary chair or an individual chair and desk. Two chairs back to back can interlock to form a picnic table. Pairs of chairs in this position could be placed next to each other and form a longer picnic table for larger parties. And finally, one may place them facing each other to create different lounging positions. 

The dynamic intentions of this chair are brought together in the notion of a Möbius strip. This geometrical concept not only unifies the multiple functions of the chair but also simplifies and economizes the construction process. The chair thus folds from a single continuous strip of perforated metal - like a Möbius strip.  The metal edges are folded toward the inside of the Mobius strip for structural stability and to achieve a softer profile for the hand.

The material is perforated sheet steel - too heavy to carry long distances, but light enough to easily arrange it on the lawn. The chair touches the lawn in limited but strategic points, thus providing the required stability without damaging the grass.  At the point where the Möbius strip crosses itself, it meets with a sphere that stabilizes the strip into its final shape. The powder coated metal surface is nice to touch, easy to clean, and very durable. A possible donor name would be  perforated on a side surface; and the ID tag is placed where the edge folds inward. The chair may be stored in stacked in groups of four, flipped and mirrored on top of each other.


Link to process book: