2024

Design Awards Silver Winner - Yue Liang; Anqi Wang; Ruijing Sun; Hao Zhou

Flow Chair

Entrant Company

Yue Liang; Anqi Wang; Ruijing Sun; Hao Zhou

Category

Seating & Comfort Furniture - Chair

Client's Name

Country / Region:

United States

Inspired by the arch structure in classic architecture, our chair deconstructs this form to adapt to the industrial age, breaking away from traditional chair designs. The stool and support are composed of two simple arcs, transforming the arch into a practical structural component. This design contrasts sharply with the modernist architectural lines and industrial materials like reinforced concrete and glass, providing a sense of comfort and warmth through traditional wood.

Our chair is a tribute to Gerrit Rietveld's 1934 Zig-Zag Chair, which consists of four flat wooden boards and features a simple, legless design. It embodies the unity of technology and art, showcasing modern industrial design methods. Similarly, our chair aims to break the unified language of furniture and architecture, using strong contrasts to integrate furniture into the space, capturing the user's attention and blurring the spatial boundaries.

We use Laminated Veneer Lumber (LVL) to make this chair, utilizing market scraps to reduce waste. LVL is made of multiple layers of thin veneer produced by rotary peeling, allowing for a seamless and uniform arch design. By taking advantage of wood’s anisotropic properties—where wood fibers expand and contract differently with changes in humidity—we bend thin pieces of wood around a form and then glue them tightly to hold their shape. This highlights the simplicity and elegance of our chair while emphasizing sustainability and efficient use of materials.

Credits

Yue Liang
Ruijing Sun
Anqi Wang
Hao Zhou
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