HD3D002: Design Intent

A few weeks ago, I wrote in a blog post:

"At this stage my concept for my chair design is to consider how this chair might have been designed - if it was designed today."

After much consideration of the design of the FLER TVS chair, sketching and working with wire to make abstract chair models, I have decided my design intent.

My intention is to design a chair that not only reinterprets how the FLER TVS chair may have looked if it was designed today using similar production process used in the original chair, but my design will be a reinterpretation of how the FLER TVS feels to sit in.

phe·nom·e·nol·o·gy

noun /fiˌnäməˈnäləjē/ 

The science of phenomena as distinct from that of the nature of being


An approach that concentrates on the study of consciousness and the objects of direct experience

Phenomenology is a term that interior designers tend to bandy around when talking about the way interior spaces feel and the effect those spaces have on the lives of the people who inhabit them. Phenomenology can also be applied to objects, and in this case, a chair. 

Sitting in the FLER TVS, I couldn't help but notice 3 things about the way the chair felt:

1. The arms and back are supported entirely by the legs
2. The hanging nature of the back gives a fair amount of flex and bounce
3. The springs in the seat creaked and cracked and bounced
4. These 3 things combined reminded me of being a kid in a playground, bouncing on one of those spring-laid playground toys
5. They also reminded me of swinging on the back legs of my chair at school, and particularly that moment when the stupid boy in the class would swing so much he'd topple over backwards and the class would roar with cheers and laughter

Without having any strong emotional ties of my own to the FLER TVS (ie my grandparents didn't have one, I'd never sat on one or even seen one in the flesh), simply by sitting in the chair I was tying my own memories to the chair.

It's drawing from these memories and feeling, along with the materials and production of the original chair, that I intend to design my own.

Chair Prototype Model, Wire, Tape and Trace Paper