The Lounge Chair, at its most basic design, is created from the application of two intersecting curvilinear forms. Completely made of wood, there exist a degree of implications in the construction of such a chair when using a material as seemingly dense and hard as Baltic Birch. These factors are considerably notable in a piece that is purely dictated by comfort and relation to the human form. In an effort to keep with the minimalist ideals of design while maintaining a high level of comfort to the end user, an extensive study in human proportion is conducted. The chair itself is built to the specific proportions of a taller individual – heavily, and seemingly directly, influenced by the designer, standing at 6’4” tall. However, the proportions of smaller individuals are not a limiting factor in the determination of comfort in the experience. Its functional success does not only lie just in the ability to adapt to a wider variety of users. As one user may find a piece of work more pleasing than which is experienced by his neighbor, the later has still expressed a view as a consequence of experience. The reaction becomes the experience – and establishes the success of design and application.
In chair (particularly lounge) construction, comfort is one of greater factors determining the success of design. The widely accepted definition of comfort is associated with material that displays a certain level of suppleness and softness to the physical touch; however, neither of these attributes are employed in the construction of the Section Plywood Lounge. In this instance, comfort is seen as a direct relation to the length, position, and angles of human segments while the body is naturally at rest. This exploration of proportion is translated to the physical form which the lounge is then created.
A material that is supple denotes comfort by its ability to conform and adapt from its pre-existing shape and mold to the outline of the human body; consequently, material can also prescribe a level of comfort when the material itself already exists in the spatial relation to the human form. To this idea, I inquire: can a rock exert a degree of comfort?
Perhaps there been an occurrence in your own life where a preexisting or naturally occurring form, when experienced, so genuinely and so perfectly conforms to the body that it transcends its original purpose and becomes, to some degree, a piece of furniture. Furniture in its own right, existing completely free of context and specialized directly to its user yet fundamentally and historically linked to site through its creation and very existence. I feel that this relation can so successfully relate object to user that, the user can become completely aware of his/her surroundings. This relation, however, may require a certain acceptance that its occurrence is purely coincidental. As the end result may have been planned by the architect or designer, the user must be at least initially unaware of that connection in order to fully appreciate such successful design in proportion. As when a user understands an artist’s intention, curiosity is diminished. It’s this existence of curiosity that heightens the experiential and transforms it to the personal.
In a project by Peter Zumthor in Vals, Switzerland, the thermal baths demonstrate a successful relationship between two naturally occurring materials – rock and water.
“An architecture which renounces formal integration into the existing buildings in order to bite more deeply, to suggest what seemed more fundamental to us in connection with the task in hand; namely, to place the thermal bath in a particular relationship with the primal strength and geological substance of the mountain scenery and the impressive relief of the topography.”
[Peter Zumthor]
