Location
New York, NY
Status
Completed 2010
Client
Battery Park: Draw-Up-a-Chair Competition
Cost
—
The Green at Battery Park offers a multitude of experiences to people that visit it, but to all it is a respite from the structured experiences of the city and a chance to recharge and immerse oneself in nature. To sit in the park is a variation of this interaction, a passive mediation between gravity and the natural world. Similarly a visitor wants a break, if only momentary, from, for example, their office chair; liberating, non-constraining, but comforting. This chair should be uniquely responsive to the infinite range of shapes, sizes, ages, social circumstances, and life’s stories embodied in each person that it encounters.
Dynamic: Given the opportunity, the body wants to continue moving, even when seated. Though sitting is passive, our body still craves a chair that responds to and moves with it if even slightly. You may have noticed that seldom does a rocking chair or desk chair rest when occupied.
The optimum angle of repose is as infinite as the occupants and their mood when inhabiting the chair. The chip chair’s radial base allows, in fact encourages him or her to seek a preferred angle to occupy the chair. By simply shifting position and center of gravity the chair angle adapts to the need: upright to discuss office business with a coworker, slightly inclined to sit back and enjoy and read, further inclined to rest after a long walk in the park.
Simplicity/Durability: The chip chair is a single contiguous form; no seat, back legs, miscellaneous parts, nuts, or bolts, just a warped planar ellipse. Simplicity, durability, economy, and safety are inherent in the chip’s nature.
Stacking: A debt of gratitude is owed to Pringles. The highly efficient anticlastic chip form is not only structurally efficient but can be extremely thin, highly portable and stackable.