Fast Company’s new design site does a story about the Gaudi Chair from Dutch designer Bram Geenan. Emulating Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi’s approach, Geenan formed his chair by observing the geometry of metal chains suspended from a ceiling–the inverted arcs were Gaudi’s way of identifying the strongest possible shape for structural arches in his churches. In adiditon to the intersting design approach, the design uses a combination of carbon fiber and 3D rapid prototyping techniques. From Geenen’s website:
A thin shell made of carbon fiber deals with the compressive forces. There’s a beam-grid substructure which resist bending of the shell. The substructure was made using rapid-prototyping techniques, to achieve the required complexity. The rapid-prototyped structure was then used as a mold for the carbon-fiber laminates. This combining of these two high-tech techniques decreased costs of both of them, and made them applicable in a functional product.
Take a browse through Geenan’s portfolio and you also find other interesting explorations of material like the tensile forces in textiles or the physics of soap-film.
[Fast Company's Design story]
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