HIGH TOP TABLE + STOOL
LINE Urbancase
DISCIPLINE commercial furniture
YEAR 2017
ROLE ideation, concept development, prototyping, design for manufacturing, aesthetics and CMF, project management
TOOLS sketching, Rhino 3D, rapid prototyping, CNC wood routing
MATERIALS steel (water jet cut, fabricated, powder coated), wood (CNC cut, hand finished), steel hardware
ANALYSIS
Hospitality furniture must be durable and economical, but few available options are also beautiful. It was determined that this high top table and stool needed to be simple, clean, and elegant while also affordable and built to last. In order to use premium materials and keep the price down, efficient manufacturing was necessary.
OBJECTIVES
Develop a line of durable hospitality furniture that utilized premium materials.
Leverage technology to streamline production.
Offer a lower price point than comparable all-wood construction.
Manufacturing efficiency is at the core of this design.
DEVELOPMENT
The stool was built around a simple steel "spider" that interlocked with the wooden components. This allowed the furniture to be assembled with bolts, eliminating the highly skilled labor necessary with traditional wood joining techniques.
The wood and steel components were produced using CNC machines. Only light finishing was done by hand.
Built for user-experience.
The hole in the seat allows the stool to be easily moved with one hand, the ring is oriented to be flat and therefore comfortable underfoot, and the hooks under the table surface free the user of the burden of holding a purse or sitting on a jacket.
RESULTS
Domestic ash was complemented with white, powder-coated steel.
CNC manufacturing methods were used to produce the majority of the components, reducing the dependency on highly-skilled labor.
Because highly-skilled labor was not required throughout the manufacturing and assembly processes, this line of furniture was introduced at a price significantly less than that of comparable furniture with all-wood construction.
Created in collaboration with Darin Montgomery of Urbancase.