Eight Bolts. Eight Rivets. Built for people who sit on the move.
The idea for this chair came from an old piece of dorm room furniture, pictured on the right. I’m a fidgety sitter who constantly tips back in chairs, so I wanted to design a “tipping chair” that I could use in my daily life. The chair in my dorm was relatively comfortable and well-suited for my sitting habits, but also quite ugly.
I designed and built an upright rocking chair for desk work that took a number of cues from Hans Wegner's Sawbuck Chair because of its visual simplicity, comfort, and economic use of materials.
I initially wanted the chair to have a bent plywood back like the Sawbuck Chair as well as arm rests. The runners were originally flat with tilted ends, but the design was impractical, unnecessarily complex, and likely wouldn't work very well at a larger scale.
The final scale prototype had curved rockers, a wood seat, and a natural leather back. After sitting in and studying existing chair designs, I realized that I could have shallower curves on the rockers and the chair could still be stable while giving me the movement flexibility I wanted. This simplified design also allowed me to build a chair that I could pack flat and ship back home once it was completed.
I built a rough mockup out of scrap wood to finalize the ergonomics of the chair, and built it in a wood shop with the mentorship of experienced cabinet makers. This was my first time making furniture, and their guidance and help was indispensable to the final execution of the chair.
