Student Design Category Winner
Frank
Olof Jondelius / University of Washington Valle Scholar Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden

The aim of the project was to show what extreme capabilities the ancient material wood has, and of course also create a beautiful piece of furniture. This is a chair to have on the... other side of a desk or table for visitors. It is designed to be in my future “old-mans-cave” on the opposite side of the table from my big armchair. This chair is made of 1/32" white oak veneers. It is tapered according to function. It is thicker where the most strain and most extreme bend (1-inch diameter) is, then it tapers and gets slimmer in the backrest to allow for flexibility at the top. When the top part of the backrest flexes, there is automatically a lumbar support created thanks to the fact that the lower, thicker part of the backrest doesn’t flex as much. The metal and the wood seating give a nice rocking ability to the whole chair. I also had to build a piece of furniture that is easily shipped. The chair is therefore made out of two pieces that are very easy to assemble. When disassembled the chair then fits in a 17"x17"x27" standard U.S. Mail box.

Comment by Alfred Sharp, 2014 judge
“The sophistication of the design is somewhat veiled by the deceiving simplicity of this piece. It’s a fresh take on a Marcel Breuer chair, but he made it his own in very clever ways. The counteraction of the cantilever, the taper in thickness to the pinpoint at the top, the strength of the bottom. Minimalist subtlety that works beautifully.”