Carry - A seating concept for the Faculty of Design Darmstadt
Design by Constantin Xavier Gaß and Constantin Boes.
Objective
Carry was developed in cooperation with and for the Faculty of Design at the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences and is designed for student spaces as well as for use at exhibitions and other events. The aim was to do justice to the design attitude of the faculty as well as to fulfil the necessary requirements. In this context, the great desire for comfort should be mentioned, as well as the essential possibility of quick conversions to create entire room situations, or to dissolve existing configurations and store them quickly.
Research and problem statement
The main requirement for comfort and ease of use is based on the use of the product in the student areas of the faculty. These are also used as exhibition spaces on certain occasions or are part of the semi-annual celebrations of the faculty. For this reason, the furniture must be easy and quick to dismantle and store. Therefore the possibility of a modular system was considered from the beginning. Space-saving storage, so that no unused space is created, was also an important point in the design and concept.
Operation and processes
Based on the developed requirements for the product, various preliminary studies on the best possible seating position, size ratios and suchlike were done on the basis of ergonomic data. As a result of this work, the concept of a basic unit in the form of a rollable base was developed, which is the basis for the upholstery and its frame through a hole pattern. The basic unit is an 800*800 plate, which can be combined by tubing connections to form one-, two- or even three-seaters. But other configurations such as islands or free forms are also possible.
If the piece of furniture needs to be stored, it is possible to group the tube connections on a base element and use the individual "trolleys" as transport modules for cushions and other elements. The castors used are easy to operate and manoeuvre with their parking brakes. At the same time, the bars also serve as handles for better transport of the basic elements.
Sketches and modelling
In the process of form finding, various drawings, preliminary models and first 3D models were produced on the basis of the existing research. The CAD programs Autodesk Inventor, Solid Works and Rhino 6 as well as Keshot 9 were used for this.
Results
