Konfrens







European Cherry Wood, 
Recycled Eco Foam, Wool


   The konfrens chair. A chair that can exist alone, with friends, or with many uses. I believe that making a piece of furniture that fits into one's home for a longer period of time—for example, a timeless design can be quite important, as it can negate an item's replacement. The design itself could be something that is not trendy, so to speak, but rather focuses on an owner keeping the chair for 20–30 years. It seamlessly takes place in someone's home without being obtrusive. The design sustains the use of eco-friendly material alternatives and also provides a good starting point for Zeitraum's furniture footprint. 

    A larger question I asked myself and a problem that I wanted to solve was: how can a chair be produced in an extremely ecologically compliant context? Using Zeitraum’s furniture footprint, I feel the guidelines were quite clear in which direction one may go; wood wood wood. The design itself is a stacking chair, which focuses on challenging what a chair can be in the context of "objektmöbel"; a term reserved for larger furnishings, and focuses on a smaller footprint, especially with smaller living spaces, where the dinner table may also be one's work desk. Or in a smaller office, where a meeting room is also the lunchroom. Having a smaller footprint, stacking chair allows for this chair to be stored and used in multiple situations. Using kvadrat's re-wool 2, the chair has the potential to strike a balance between comfort and discomfort, allowing the user to get up and move every 30–40 minutes; making it perfect for work-at-home situations, hotels, or break out meeting rooms. 
    
    The chair is made from solid wood and glued together, not using screws or any other metal joinery. It was imperative for me given the problem statements, to stay away from metal joinery. The pieces of wood were cut using a band saw and then milled out using CNC milled templates, scalable for larger productions. The backrest was steam-bent, for which I built a steam chamber where the backrest was steamed for about 5–6 hours at 15mm thick and then bent using a form. Once this was complete, the chair was glued together with the help of dominoes using a jig for the legs to fit on; this is essentially in the shape of the chair's footprint, a furniture footprint, so to speak. Using cherry wood, and the re-wool from kvadrat, a perfect balance of visible comfort with warm tones was achieved. Below are some photos of the progress from inception to final chair.






    Overall, this design is focused on the social compatibility of materials, specifically how wood and upholstery are sourced. As it was evident with the footprint prognosis as a guideline from ZEITRAUM from the different woods, a chair with upholstery has the potential to be less compliant with ZEITRAUM's furniture footprint but still have space to exist. In closing, I believe this design balances a timeless design with modern materials, whether it is with or without upholstery.