The Tension & Trust Nursery Collection (Spring 2021)
Tension & Trust consists of three furniture prototypes that each employ tensegrity principles in their construction. Tensegrity is a means of construction that relies on tension and compression as it connects rigid components with tensile chords. The project has evolved to be a formal experimentation with tensegrity furniture to serve as an observation on how the construction of the piece affects the user’s visual perception of it. Tension & Trust takes the zany approach of using baby furniture to exaggerate the implication of a tensegrity based design. In prototyping with these structures over the past year I found that designing with tensegrity is more of a puzzle than I realized. As a designer I only chose the size and direction of the rigid components, but as a prototyper I had to uncomfortably pull the parts into the one and only possible position where everything is cohesively rigid, and let that rigidity dictate the final form. Knowing that total rigidity is possible in only one correct orientation, where no members are loose or can be loosened, gives me the faith that these designs are stable. My objective with this project is to create designs that convinced the viewer of stability, and therefore the structural potential of tensegrity in functional design.
This Exhibition will feature the following project as well as the work of 6 other graduating Seniors. (Click here for more info)
Prototype I: Transparent Tension (2 views)
Clear acrylic, Plastic rods, 1/8" Steel chord, and hardware 15x15x29"