CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT

Initially I planned to address the lack of adequate seating for people visiting the 100% Design show in Tokyo by providing some form of back-rest/ seating to assist people sitting on the grass. However after doing some further research I came to the conclusion that there was a general lack of seating throughout the entire exhibition. I also noticed that almost everyone was carrying a 100% show bag this gave me the idea of providing some form of chair that people could carry around with them like they do the show bags. For this to be effective the design must not only be:

· S-Seat one person (150kg)

· E-Easy to assemble

· H- Have an economical use of material

· B- Brand ready

· E-Easy to recycle

It must be:

· P- Portable

· Li- Light weight

· F-Fold and unfold easily

As an additional feature I attempted to make a couple of my designs double as a bag in an attempt to reduce the amount of stuff people needed to carry.

Concept 01: Multifunctional stool.

As the first concept I came up with it is fairly simple. The idea was to create a piece of furniture that depending on which was you positioned it could act as a stool or as a back rest. I think the concept is successful in that it uses minimal material, light weight and is easy to assemble. There are a few weaknesses however. The triangulation makes the stool side of the chair very strong and should easily hold a persons weight, the backrest side however does not have the same support and would struggle to hold up much weight. The locking system is also very simple and although it does the job is not terribly finished.

Concept 02: stool in a bag

This was based on the idea of having a bag that could be transformed into a stool. This was slightly more effective then the previous design. The only fault I notice is the two sides of the bag fall apart if you are not holding onto the handle. This is only a minor problem though and could be fixed quite simple with a couple of tabs or a different folding system.

Concept 03: folding stool 01

I like this design in that it transforms from a stool to a bag very effectively the only draw back being that you have to actually turn the bag over in order to use it as a seat which isn’t very practical. The design its self again relies on triangulation which makes it quite strong but also light weight. The overall finishes are a bit messy though and I would have to change the folding method it I were to continue on with this design.

Concept 04: Folding stool 02

This is perhaps the most nicely finished design. The chair folds and unfolds incredibly easily and is simple to assemble. It folds down flat and has a handle making it easy to transport or stack. The addition of the pocket at the front (although a little tacked on at this point) also means that brochures and other event merchandise can be stored easily without having to turn the stool over.