University of Iowa Iowa Research Online Theses and Dissertations Spring 2016 Chinese bench : a research on multi-function furniture design Yi Xie University of Iowa Copyright 2016 Yi Xie This thesis is available at Iowa Research Online: http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/3230 Recommended Citation Xie, Yi. "Chinese bench : a research on multi-function furniture design." MFA (Master of Fine Arts) thesis, University of Iowa, 2016. http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/3230. Follow this and additional works at: http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd Part of the Art Practice Commons
CHINESE BENCH - A RESEARCH ON MULTI-FUNCTION FURNITURE DESIGN by Yi Xie A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Fine Arts degree in Art in the Graduate College of The University of Iowa May 2016 Thesis Supervisor: Associate Professor Monica Correia
Copyright by YI XIE 2016 All Rights Reserved
Graduate College The University of Iowa Iowa City, Iowa CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL MASTER'S THESIS This is to certify that the Master's thesis of Yi Xie has been approved by the Examining Committee for the thesis requirement for the Master of Fine Arts degree in Art at the May 2016 graduation. Thesis Committee: Monica Corria, Thesis Supervisor Steve McGuire Ab Gratama Kee-ho Yuen
To people who design the lives they love. ii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my appreciation to all the teachers of my M.F.A courses, whose lectures have laid the foundation of this paper. I am extremely grateful to my mentor and supervisor Professor Monica Correia, who has been patient all the time and keeps providing me professional guidance and direction to conquer all the tasks. She always encourages me to think outside of the box and be more confident in myself. I will be forever grateful for the knowledge and rewarding experience I gained from her within the 3D Design Program. Thank you so much! I am deeply indebted to my family for their support and love through my graduate studies. Without their endless caring and encouragement, I would not go this far and find my passion for art and design. iii
PUBLIC ABSTRACT Nowadays, the world is facing a lot of serious problems because of the population explosion and the resource shortage. Overcrowded living area creates economic and social issues, and the limitation of material choices not only lowers the quality of house holding merchandise, but also leads to the raise of the price. Due to all these complicated factors, multi-function furniture becomes one of the solutions for space sustainability. Multi-function furniture combines different functions into one piece to control the material consumption, creates opportunities for the interaction between the object and human, and effectively save user s space. At the same time, the price of multi-function furniture, by contrast, is usually more reasonable than purchasing several furniture pieces together. This kind of design becomes more and more popular among young generation, and it is the trend of today s furniture design. Through the exploration of human s living habits and the study of contemporary multi-function furniture, I designed a piece of furniture, Chinese Bench with the concept of space and material sustainability. This thesis is based on the field study of ergonomics and furniture design theory, illustrates the final prototypes of my multi-functional furniture. The design can be served as sit, table and storage, and it emphasizes the importance of space use and valuable customization for user at the same time. The design aims to provide a more efficient living mode in limited space, and reduce the material consumption. At the same time, the pattern and graphic forms are adapted in this design; they can meet people s need for beauty and function at the same time, let the user obtain the sympathy and entertainment from the design. iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES... vi CHAPTER I. RESEARCH... 1 The Issues... 1 The Exploration and Inspiration... 3 II. CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT... 11 Tradition and Present... 11 III. DESIGN PROCESS... 12 Application of Forms... 12 Consideration of Function and Ergonomics... 14 Utilization of Advanced Techniques... 18 Conclusion... 24 REFERENCES... 25 v
LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Plan view of home spa and dining area, Gary Chang, 2009... 4 2. Plan view of kitchen and bedroom, Gary Chang, 2009... 5 3. Domestic transformer- Gary Chang s Apartment, Gary Chang, 2009... 7 4. Front of Booktrough, Holt Clifford, 2005... 8 5. Suede seat in between the boards, Holt Clifford, 2005... 9 6. The board intersection and the modular cavities, Holt Clifford, 2005... 10 7. Luohan Bed with Three-panel Screen Railings... 14 8. Initial sketch of Chinese Bench, Hand sketch, 2015... 16 9. Chinese Bench with curve-back armchair, Autodesk 3D max, 2015... 17 10. Final Chinese Bench prototype, MDF board, 2015... 17 11. Miniature prototype of Chinese Bench, form board, 2015... 18 12. Structure details, Autodesk CAD, 2015... 20 13. Plan view of all components, Autodesk CAD, 2015... 20 14. Details of drawer and bench back, MDF Board, 2015... 21 15. Different way of using Chinese Bench, MDF Board, 2015... 22 16. Chinese Bench, MDF board, 2015... 23 vi
1 CHAPTER I RESEARCH The Issues Furniture and product design has been my research focus for a long time, because I want to learn how they can be widely used as daily tools to support human s basic living and provide people a more delightful lifestyle. I found that today s designers of furniture and industrial product aim to create a better artistic living environment together with the well-considered function, so they would directly influence people s lifestyle and living quality. However, the more design I searched, the more problems I discovered- a large number of furniture and products in market are not sustainable at all, they would occupy a lot of living space without the actual function, and their ostentatious ornaments make the product expensive without substance. With the rapid changes of the time, the concern about society and environment issue is urgent to be considered in the design process. The first problem we have is high cost of living in limited space. I am an international student from China, and my motherland has a population larger than 1.3 billion people. Despite the implement of policies such as Birth Control, overcrowding has become the most serious social problem due to the large population since 70 s. A large number of high buildings with the units of apartments with limited space have been built for accommodate people. Real estate process has been soaring. As a result of limited residential area and resources, high cost of living in small spaces is a pretty common problem in today s society. As an example, my family purchased an apartment in rural area in 2000 in Wuhan, Hubei, and the price was approximately $23 per square feet with the currency at that time. And nowadays, the price per square feet is approximately $126 within the currency at this moment. It becomes unaffordable for people to buy large apartments. Most of the families can only choose to live in the apartment that is about
2 100 square feet. Life in these small apartments is neither comfortable nor convenient. Worse still, China is not the only country facing this problem, and a lot of big cities in Japan and India, and even New York City in the United States are faced with this issue. It is unimaginable if people continuously congest those types of impractical product and furniture into that narrow space. Apart from the problem of high cost of living, the shortage of natural resources and its high price is another issue that today s people need to take into consideration. Limited availability of wood, iron, steel and many other raw materials has become a growing concern in these days. However, for furniture construction and product design, these materials are widely used for manufacturing. A lot of different materials and new technologies have been experimented and used for production, yet it still costs a lot to pay for the advanced technology and rare material. For example, 3D printing technology is extremely popular in recent years, but the raw materials, like special plastic powder for printing, are still expensive, and the size of printing usually has limitations. We probably need to do more researches and tests to make this type of technology become more affordable and sustainable. Still another, we are living in a highly diversified society, the users of furniture and product would have a lot of different requirements based on their background, personal preference and some other factors, even each members from a family might has their own habits and needs, so it requires the products and furniture that is applicable for all different types of environment, or can be easily transformed with a variety of function. The multi-function method and space sustainability should be considered when people do furniture and product design. They would fit into the limited space better, and carry out all kinds of duties at the same time. Like Anna Yudina said in her book FURNITECTURE- Furniture That Transforms Space, this widely practiced model can occasionally rigger extraordinary solutions. Aimed at maintaining the flexibility of a
3 space, these designs deliver functionality while leaving plenty of room for future change. (Yudina, Anna, 3). The Exploration and Inspiration Although furniture and products that we use everyday are always smaller than buildings and are placed inside of the building, furniture/ product design and architecture still have some common characteristics- from the functional perspective of view, both of these design aim to create the device that could provide practicability and convenience to human s daily lives; from the design and esthetic aspect, the challenge to maintain the stable structure and function with small material waste exist in both design areas. Thus, the furniture and product design can be treated as a type of mini architecture. Like Green Architecture design, the furniture and product design can also achieve sustainability with structure innovation, space flexibility and material saving. Hong Kong designer Gary Chang sets us a good example- he innovated his tiny apartment into a space that could be transformed into 24 different rooms. His key to success is movable wall, space dividers and foldable furniture. The apartment he owns is the space that he has been living since he was 14. At that time, he lived together with his parents and three younger sisters. The journalist described Chang s child living situation: Like most of the 370 units in the 17-story building, which dates to the 1960s, the small space was partitioned into several tiny rooms in this case, three bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom and a hallway. Mr. Chang s parents shared the master bedroom his sisters shared a second bedroom, and the third, almost incredibly although not unusually for Hong Kong was occupied by a tenant, a woman in her 20s, whom Mr. Chang remembers only for the space she took up. (Gardiner, Virginia, 2). However, after his parents moved out and gave this apartment to him, he used this space as his experiment studio and started to customize all the components, from the wall construction to curtain setting. This apartment space is a simple rectangle, but after the renovation, it gets divided into a
4 lot of sections that maintain varieties of function- kitchen, spa area, bedtime space and dinning room (Figure 1). Figure 1: Plan view of home spa and dining area, Gary Chang, 2009 Source: thenewyorktimes.com, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/garden/15hongkong.html?_r=1
5 Figure 2: Plan view of kitchen and bedroom, Gary Chang, 2009 Source: thenewyorktimes.com, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/garden/15hongkong.html?_r=1 Even though Chang lived in this space for many years, he tried to maintain this old house as a brand new relaxing and entertaining space. This apartment got renovated for four times in total and finally got 24 different layouts. There are 13 tracks hiding in between the architecture substantive ceiling and a mirror ceiling to hold all the movable walls with truckles. The mirror ceiling not only effectively covers the busy tracks on the top, but also extends the top space and visually enlarges the room.
6 In this apartment, most of the movable walls are installed with facilities and storage area on both sides. For example, in the end of this apartment is the designer s bedroom - he has a folded sofa and bed that attached to the structure wall. In front the bed, there is a movable wall with TV installed in. During the mealtime, the bed usually gets folded and hidden behind the TV wall. In the back of the movable wall, there are kitchen storages and micro bar built on the shelves, and all the other kitchen facilities, such as sink and refrigerator, are placed attach to the other wall that stands opposite to the foldable bed wall. Besides, the TV/ kitchen wall is also a laundry-drying shelf. The washing machine and dryer share the same wall with kitchen sink and fridge. After you pass the laundry section, there are two overlapped portable walls to hide the spa pool. The overlapped walls also contain the storage area- in the wall Chang stored more than 3000 CD and DVD discs and some of the shelf space is still empty. Some of those shelves are made in stainless steel sheet, so they are super skinny and would cut down the loss of space. At last, in the entrance of the apartment is the designer s wardrobe and bathroom. Besides all the basic facilities for daily usage, the residential space should also provide pleasure, so Chang installed lifting screen also as curtain in front of the screen window and a projector is hanging on the mirror ceiling. Besides the projector and screen, the audio equipment is hidden under the mirror ceiling too. All the movable walls have been inserted handle to keep everything user-friendly. The house doesn t contain any extra ornaments or luxury decorations, but the form and structure of all the walls and mobile system perfectly show the industrial beauty. Chang said the renovation of this apartment is not expensive because of the use of hardware and composite board without actual brick and cement. This apartment renovation is a perfect precedent of space saving and multifunctional design. The room dividing system successfully trigger marvelous solutions, they can organize the space and provide enough storage area. When the room get transformed and contains much flexibility, the whole space would start flow, in this
7 Figure 3: Domestic transformer- Gary Chang s Apartment, Gary Chang, 2009 Source: architectureandhousestyle.com, http://architectureandhousestyles.blogspot.com/2011/08/domestic-transformer-ofarchitect-gary.html
8 way, it could contribute more possibilities for users to create their own way to interactive with the product. And people can also develop varieties of future change if they add more family members after they get familiar with the system. Besides the method of making flowing interior, creating folded furniture and product is also a way to keep the space sustainable. In the meantime, the material would automatically deduct because of the multi- function design. Besides the sustainable design for big scale space and architecture, the flexible multi-function concept is widely used for small product. In general, this type of products would have some accessories and hidden mechanism to keep the adaptability. Bookthrough designed by Holt Clifford is a good example for multi-function furniture. Figure 4: Front of Booktrough, Holt Clifford, 2005 Source:holtclifforddesigners.com http://holtclifforddesigners.com/02/02_booktrough.htm The main body of this book storage furniture is made by 3 pieces of custom-laid plywood: the front, back and base plywood boards can intersect with each other, and a ladder frame run underneath the whole body. In this way, unlike the enclosed storage space, this product would utilize the double- faced nature of the wood materials to reduce the
9 material wasting and become eco-friendly. They naturally form the shelf and container. Other than the basic structure, a lot of fixings and accessories can be added to provide more functions. The base sets up with modular cavities, and four U shape stainless steel frames can be inserted in. This setting would maintain the flexibility for the users to customize the bookshelves. And the base also create a support for the sitting accessory at the same time, the designer adds a movable suede seat that could perfectly lock in between the front and back boards, in addition, a half-opened depository is simply appear between the seat and base board. As the book Furniture by Architects describes, A suite of accessories is available to the user so the unit can fit or change with their needs. Ganging from simple dividers and suede bench seats to more elaborate chests and audiovisual cabinets, each piece fits into the cavity and can be assembled according to need or new location in the home. This is an object of humble construction that excels in its flexibility and appeal because of its unusual proportions and an unspoken invitation to interactive with it. (Fatih, Driss, 1). Figure 5: Suede seat in between the boards, Holt Clifford, 2005 Source:holtclifforddesigners.com http://holtclifforddesigners.com/02/02_booktrough.htm
10 Figure 6: The board intersection and the modular cavities, Holt Clifford, 2005 Source:holtclifforddesigners.com http://holtclifforddesigners.com/02/02_booktrough.htm The form of Bookthrough is really simple. However, the initial form is still productively obtaining the flexibility when all the unnecessary structures and details are taken out, the adjustability can be easily gained with less limitations. Moreover, for Bookthrough, the mass production is not an issue any more. The simple board and stainless steel frame are the only components that users need to assemble together, and they can be produced by Computer Numeric Control cutting and machine banding technologies. When the manufacturing cost get cut down, the final market price would also be lowered. As a consequence, these designs can successfully relief the stress of high-cost living and save materials. I learned the concepts and apply them into my own design.
11 CHAPTER II CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT Tradition and Present Due to my living and education background, besides the esthetic of design, the way to eliminate the adverse impact to the environment is also what I concerned about Design is not only about using less harmful materials, but also about how our products can change people s behavior and guide them concern more about our environment. Home furnishing appliance should be designed in a way to lead people to use them in a effective way in order to utilize the surrounding area. Meanwhile they would let the user experience the entertainment of personalizing the goods, and encourage them to maintain orderly life style, thus cause subconsciously beneficial impact on the environment. Fortunately, after I participated the Furniture Design course in the 3D Design Department in University of Iowa, I decided to implement the concepts in my future design. The project of the course was to design a side table that contains more than two storage drawers, which gave me the chance to challenge myself to create multi-function furniture. After I studied the furniture and product in today s market, I realize that there is a large amount of multi-function pieces existed already, but some of them lost the uniqueness of the design when they are under the control of material usage, and the quality of these facilities is poor. They are more like contemporary cheap solution for urban monads instead of bringing good home atmosphere. On the contrary, the traditional Chinese furniture use precious hard wood as material and contain a significant classic style and design, but the design involves too much extra decorations and hardly contributes to the sustainability to the environment. As a result, I got the idea to carry forward the extraordinary strong points from Chinese traditional furniture (such as mortise-and-tenon joint and stability) and simplified the form, improve them and create the modern sustainable Chinese furniture.
12 CHAPTER III DESIGN PROCESS Application of Forms Like Chinese traditional calligraphy and painting, the classic Chinese furniture usually presents a strong archaistic and elegant looking. Chinese furniture has long been celebrated for its artistic lines, exquisite workmanship and stable structures, and deeply influences the whole Asia like ancient Japan and Korea; they are also popular in some European countries, like France. In spite of the unbelievable achievements, after the western culture gradually infiltrate into our tradition culture, the traditional Chinese furniture is forgotten since the contemporary living style is different. In the old days, the sparsely land had small population, so the large-scale furniture could be easily placed inside of the room. And due to the technology limitations, the pace of working and living was slow, so it provided more time for the artists and craft men to develop the traditional ornaments in architecture and all kinds of products. Moreover, the sophisticated decorations on furniture were also considered as the proof of art and craftsmanship. As time goes by, now the younger generation gets influence from the high-pace living style, and they prefer to see the exaggerated shapes and rich colors in contemporary art and design; the products that contain geometric shape and Minimalist design would immediately attract people. As a consequence, the conventional Chinese household furniture that covered by the historical patterns and decorations get discarded because of the heavy visual effect. However, in my opinion, the traditional culture should be kept inside designer s mind. No matter which country the designers come from, they should not forget the spirit and the strong point of their own tradition and craft technique, and our duty is to discover a efficient way to protect the advantage in our culture by using leading technology.
13 After the research, I found that the furniture design in Song Dynasty had some significant achievements, and some of the advantage design could be considered as references in my design. During the Northern and Southern Song (960-1279) periods, a large amount of high furniture got developed and was widely used by civilians, and due to the thrifty life style of emperor, the furniture and product tended to be simplified and looked more elegant without redundant and ornate patterns especially in ordinary residents. The dignified feature and appearance of Song Dynasty s product can be extracted and integrate the Minimalist style in nowadays design. Aside from the effort of saving construction material, the design tries to meet the aesthetic appreciation at this moment after removing all the tedious details. In this way the design maintains the spirit of traditions and sustainability at the same time. To accomplish the goal of making multi-function product and bring some new elements into the traditional furniture, I studied the traditional furniture piece include chair, bed, cabinet, and table. The traditional Chinese table actually does not usually contain storage space or multi functions, but there is one kind of house holding piece that named Luohan Bed could be developed and achieve multiple purposes. For my design- Chinese Bench, I took the inspiration from Luohan bed and mixed its characteristics with other furniture pieces. Luohan bed is a special type of furniture in conventional Chinese furniture piece- it can be use as daybed, couch or a set of table and chair. The size for this kind of product equals to a single bed, so it can be treated as a bed or a regular bench. Besides its function as a seat, a low tea table could be set up in the center of the seating area, so it can be also treated as a set of chairs and table. The facility can be placed inside of study room or hallway to create numerous relaxing spaces. To make the form more simplified, I took the concept from Bookthrough, and take out the side panels from the structure, so the piece would not have a defined back and can be placed in all type of space, either the center of the room or by the wall.
14 Figure 7: Luohan Bed with Three-panel Screen Railings Source:culturalchina.com http://arts.cultural-china.com/en/102a9354a13345.html Consideration of Function and Ergonomics My final design Chinese Bench keeps the initial model of Luohan bed, and it can be served as a couch, a single bed or a table. More than that, to change the primitive design to fit the times and solve the space dissipation, there are two drawers installed underneath the seat, so it can be used to keep books, magazines, keys and many other daily supplies inside as a small storage appliance. Apart from the storage function, when people use this piece as a seating appliance, this furniture needs to be ergonomically constructed to provide comfortable experience to its user. The first version of Chinese Bench is a combination of Luohan bed and the traditional curved back chair (figure 5), and the original appearance of Chinese Bench still emanates a very dull antique looking. In the first design the classic Chinese gate knob are placed on the drawers to keep the uniqueness of time-honored culture and art,
15 but after several times of checking I realize this detail may cause inconvenience because the extruded handles would hamper the natural movement of users legs when they use this piece as a seat, so instead of fluctuant solid piece, I abstract the handle and directly set an empty cut on the surface of the drawers to make it flat and get rid of tripping threat. In addition, from the perspective of flexibility, the surrounding shaped seat back that quoted from historical rounded-back armchair would limit the number of people to sit on, and it may restrict the user s movement even if it was used by only one person, the user can only sit and act inside within a specific limited area. In order to make it more comfortable and convenient for its user, the traditional curved armchair s back get cut in half, so an asymmetrical form appears. As a consequence of this improvement, the user would be able to move more freely, and more than one person can use this bench at the same time to take different action. Within all of the enhancement, the Chinese Bench can fit in different kinds of places and give varieties of satisfaction of function - it can be placed right near the entrance of the space to provide a sitting space and a mini repository, or it can be used as a sculptural furniture for tea serving and reading with glamorous Chinese style.
Figure 8: Initial sketch of Chinese Bench, Hand sketch, 2015 16
17 Figure 9: Chinese Bench with curve-back armchair, Autodesk 3D max, 2015 Figure 10: Final Chinese Bench prototype, MDF board, 2015
18 Utilization of Advanced Technology There is no doubt that ecologically friendly materials and implementation of mass-production will contribute to make sustainable environment, so addition to the adaptable function of the product, appropriate manufacture method should be adopted in today s furniture and product design. Within the assistance of Autodesk CAD and 3D Max software, the entire components design representation can be easily finished, and prepared for Computer Numerical Control Cutting. Before processing the fabrication of Chinese Bench, a smallscaled model is made by laser cutting technology for testing the visual effect and stability. After assembling the form board pieces of the bench together, the structure weakness is revealed on the connection between bench legs and base. To reinforce the construction, for the final product, double-layered legs are produced to enhance the whole structure; it can give the base and storage space more support, and keep the safety of user when they sit on the bench. The laser cutting rapid automation gives designer the possibility to improve the form and save material cost at the same time. Figure 11:Miniature prototype of Chinese Bench, form board, 2015
19 After testing within several mini mock-up models, the form of the piece need to be simplified and becomes structurally reasonable. In the end, the handle of the drawers moved down to the middle of the front surface to block the inner construction that is used to reinforce the structure underneath the seat. And due to the technique limitations of making wood joints, the back of the chair also gets conventionalized as a streamlined frame. The simplified bench uses less wood board material to make, and the geometrical shape also let me achieve my final goal of making modernized Chinese furniture. For the next step, two 3/4 thick 4 by 4 MDF boards are used to make a fullscale prototype for investigating the usage possibility. This is a really important step for design to get rid of the hazard and danger in future. In this way, a more accurate model can be tested within actual human and stored stuff weight to approve the security. Also, a precised model would be helpful for usage experience checking based on ergonomic requirements. This model gives me more feedback on the joints and structure construction for future production as well. Without CNC cutting, the issues of construction and dimension would not be found and revised, and it might influence the final quality of furniture and products. Nowadays Computer Numerical Control technology is one thing to achieve the goal of making sustainable products. Not only for making mock-up models, in furniture industry, Computer Numerical Cutting technologies are widely used in order to save labor and economize the time as well. When less people get involved into the production process, the manufactory can successfully pay less for employment, and then reach the goal of reducing product cost. And the advanced technology would help accelerate the speed of fabrication- as long as the pattern gets created inside of Autodesk software, they can be quickly transferred into the cutting path for machine and become extremely accurate rather than handcrafting, and large number of components could be made in a short period of time and ready for the final assembling.
20 Figure 12: Structure details, Autodesk CAD, 2015 Figure 13: Plan view of all components, Autodesk CAD, 2015
Figure 14: Details of drawer and bench back, MDF Board, 2015 21
Figure 15: Different way of using Chinese Bench, MDF Board, 2015 22
Figure 16: Chinese Bench, MDF board, 2015 23
24 Conclusion Design and art should always be created based on needs of the society and solve the issues to provide people a better living environment, that is why the multi-function furniture and product design needs more attention and development. My research and working process give me the opportunity and new skills to create the object that supports Green Design. Within the support of all kinds of software and progressive techniques, the design of Chinese Bench would follow the principles of space and environment improvements. Even the final product that shown is not made in the plywood material I intended to use, the piece still contains the basic traditional culture characteristics, ergonomic function and eco-design concept. For next step, I would like to make a full-scaled product with the correct material and add mortise-and-tenon joint to attain the goal of assembling and disassembling. I believe that in future, the multi-function furniture and product would greatly improve the quality of people s life on this planet.
25 REFERENCES Driss, Fatih. Furniture by Architects. The Image Publishing Group Pty Ltd 2013, Austria, p.36. 2013. Gardiner, Virgina, 24 Rooms Tucked Into One. Contemporist. com. Accessed Janurary 14 th,2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/garden/15hongkong.html?_r=1 Yudina, Anna, Furniture: Furniture That Transforms Space. Title Books AB for IKEA of Sweden AB. 2013.