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:
