This was a 4-member team project completed over a semester during my Industrial Design Engineering (IDE) studies in The Hague. Our team was tasked with re-designing a chair in The Makery line. As our team was new to furniture design we started with the basics, doing a deep dive into the history and evolution of chair design. We narrowed our focus to Scandinavian and Dutch design, but also looked at different construction methods (mortise and tenon, dowel construction, wood bending, etc) before we arrived at Japanese joinery.

With sustainability in mind we then researched materials and alternatives to traditional upholstery, discovering we could make a strong enough seat out of paper layers and glue. This is the origin of the I am Paper project title which we used for the IDE Expo presentation.

We created digital 3D models, laser-cut prototypes, and made a full scale prototype before we finalised the design — which we then built. I present, the Jigsaw lounge: