Cardboard Chair

I started MDC Interiors 8 years ago and have learned so much in the process.  As the business has evolved, I found myself gravitating more towards design and product development. . . .which in turn led to the launch of the reclaimed furniture line in 2011.  I learned quite a bit through the furniture line and decided I wanted to learn more about design, production, and technical processes.  Enter graduate school.

I just finished my first year of the Industrial Design program at Georgia Tech.  It was a challenging year, balancing work with a full time school load, but I made it through.  Perhaps with many sleepless nights and one too many bowls of ramen noodle, but made it through nonetheless. 

I'd like to share some of my projects with you.  The next few posts will highlight some of the projects completed through the Fall semester ID program.
-Mike

Design Challenge 1:  To create a chair composed of cardboard that utilizes the integrity, structure, and function of the material to create an aesthetically pleasing and functional seating unit.

I really enjoyed working with cardboard.  Working with unexpected materials inspires creativity and forces you to think outside the box (literally).  I also appreciate that cardboard is recyclable, greener than many materials, and readily available to most people.  Next time, you're tossing out that cardboard box think twice about its potential.  

I've included the final product and process images below.

"Raised" Beds Made from Parts of Office Chair + Recycled Wood

A friend of ours  unloaded a bunch of chairs for super cheap. I really like the chairs because they have a great retro vibe and figured my rickety generic chair from Office Max could use a style update. However, when 6 chairs arrived at our shop, I began to wonder how I was going to find space. I’d already decided to create a bench using the chair seats and create a nook a la Six Feet Under(the nook in Keith’s house). More to come on this project on a future blog. So I unscrewed the roller base of the chair since I won’t need it for the kitchen bench and began to brainstorm on how I could utilize the whole chair. I remembered seeing a blog post back in the day where another designer had used the roller base to make a planter mobile, and had loved the idea. With my tomato plants and bell peppers quickly sprouting up from wee seeds a few weeks back, I needed to find a larger space and replant them. Using reclaimed wood from other furniture projects, I created 2 mobile planters. I decided to create a cutout in one box, and lined it with wire to allow the soil to penetrate and warm up the soil from the sides, as well as the top. The second box is a bit smaller and sans cut out. Once I started planting, I really embraced the idea! I was able to avoid back pain by eliminating the crouching and bending that comes with planting in the ground, and love that I can move my plants to spots with more sunlight based on daily cloud activity and push my plants to the hose for rehydration. I’d like to create more, so if you have ideas send them my way. I’ll keep you posted on the progress of my plants in my “raised” (truly raised) beds.