Hasta La Ideas

“It’s common knowledge that 2×4’s aren’t actually 2×4. In fact, the dimension of a standard 2×4 is closer to 1 1/2″ x 3 1/2″ x 96″. However, this is just enough material to produce a pretty nice chair. With these instructions you can build a chair for about the price of a cup of coffee.”

Industrial Designer and Brown University lecturer Ian Gonsher worked with student Jake Geller to produce a free-use DIY chair project for the summer. All you need is one 2×4, a little bit of time and some simple tools to get started. Download instructions here and let us know how your chair turns out!

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A violin seems like such an ergonomically-poor design, given that you’ve gotta cock your head to the side like that. But if you look at a cellist, you never see them slouch when they’re playing; they look like poster boys and girls for proper spinal alignment.

Designer Woojin Chung made the latter observation and designed a chair intended to promote good cellist-like posture. Chung’s “Half Chair” accomplishes this by removing material, providing a smaller ass-print in a bid to reduce slouching.

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While Slovenian architect Bruno Urh has been designing buildings and spaces for some two decades now, his venture into furniture design is not as far afield as his diverse practice in everything from poetry to mountaineering. (At least according to his Wikipedia page, translated from his mother tongue.)

Details about the “Chair for Janez Suhadolc” are scarce, but I think it’s safe to assume that Urh studied with the namesake of the chair at the University of Ljubljana.

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After spending the first half of her professional life as a physical therapist in her native Iceland, Emilia Borgthorsdottir made the transition to industrial design. Coalesse realized her first production piece, the “Sebastopol” table, on the occasion of NeoCon 2011, where her mix-n-match design took the Gold Award in its category. Read on as she talks us through her background and her latest work.

Core77: So first things first, can you tell me about your background?

Emilia Borgthorsdottir: I’m from Iceland. I’ve lived in the States for five years now and it’s been two years since I graduated [with a B.S. in industrial design], so this is my first production piece.

I understand you were a physical therapist before becoming a designer?

Yes, yes back in the day. So I was working in a clinic as a physical therapist. Of course, ergonomics and biomechanics are always in my head— always have the body in mind. It’s good to have that base of knowledge when you’re designing because of course we’re always designing for people. Even though it’s packaging or whatever, it’s always the interaction of the human body to a product. So I think it’s very useful.

That was back in Iceland?

Yes, that was back in Iceland.

And you moved to the States to pursue your degree in design?

Yes… my husband was relocated, so that’s why I thought I would use the opportunity to study. It takes four years to learn physical therapy, but on my third year, I thought why not pursue my passion for design and take a Masters in ergonomic design instead of rehabilitation? So I thought it would make sense to have this knowledge in the background of design. So I took a Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial Design.

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NeoCon 2011 marks an auspicious start to the partnership between furniture brand Coalesse and multidisciplinary California designer Cory Grosser: his “CG-1” won the Silver Design Award in the table category. We had a chance to catch up with him at Merchandise Mart.

Core77: Let’s start with a little background—where you’re from, where you studied, how you got into industrial design?

Sure. I’m Cory Grosser, a designer from Los Angeles. I studied architecture at the University of Buffalo and I have a degree in industrial design from Art Center in Pasadena.

How long have you been working independently, and how long have you been working with Coalesse?

We’re entering our 10th year [but] this is my first project with Coalesse… and we started [working with them] about a year and a half ago.

How did that come about? Was there a brief?

In fact there was; there was a brief for a line of tables that could fit in a lot of different types of space. That was the original brief for the project.

Coalesse’s design office in San Francisco, so I flew up there and we presented about ten ideas. [Of those initial designs,] four were a little bit more interesting for them, and we studied those four and we ended up with the [CG-1].

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