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Interviews with Tetsuo Shibata
Designer profileDesign Interview
10 May 2020 · Alcyone La Sedia In Piedi
After having had some health issues from sitting and working long hours at the office for many years, I wanted to design a product that would help me stand and work in an office while keeping my other body parts such as legs, hips, glute and upper body engaged at the same time. That health incidence in spite of being fairly active after hours and on weekends made me realize the importance of making a fundamental change to the way I work and exercise in order to prevent further damage to my health. And this started with evaluating the way I worked in terms of body anatomy and focusing on three things; maintaining a good posture throughout the day, keep moving as much as possible while working and to take a break often to do a quick workout assisted by a product I could design myself. With the backrest attached to the seat which follows the shape of natural arch of spine, keeping a good posture becomes easier as it prevents slumping forward and making the seat move vertically and sideways would allow body parts to keep moving as well. In order to engage in a bit more vigorous movement, I wanted to use this product as a chair/ exercise equipment with which I could perform sit and stand movement while seated, do hip twisting sideways to stretch hip flexor muscles and do a backward stretch by raising both arms over the backrest. Anyone could perform all of these exercises quickly and discreetly while working in the office or at home.
My plan is to build a prototype whether through industries and manufactures interested in financing and fabricating the product or through local fabrication shops I can work with directly. Production of parts will have to be relegated to several different shops and plants specializing in production of specific components. After the prototype is built, my hope is to have it tested and evaluated by different groups of people for a few months to find out the strengths and weaknesses of the design, to improve it and to promote it through advertisement, exhibition and/ or social media.
This was a completely self-initiated project which took approximately two and a half years working part time in my own studio, and can be split into first and second phases. The first was an investigational phase and involved doing series of sketches, building scale models and a full scale mock-up and getting feedbacks from my colleagues. This is the period when I produced perhaps the largest amount of sketches, models and photographs to document manual fabrication processes for future reference. The second phase was more specific and concentrated on the current design that took about a year to the time I nominated my design to this competition.
This is an important point about this project. And it is that, at this point, I am not certain that this product will work, much less, whether or not to sell or lease the production rights. By entering this competition, the pursuit of “nuts and bolts” portion of this project was put on hold in favor of refining the visual images which by themselves will be very useful in refining or redesigning the mechanical parts of the project in tangible three dimensional form. As I mentioned before, I would like to put the product through consumer testing and based on users’ feedback, it will be improved and redesigned slightly before considering leasing the production rights. Then there is a question of applying for the patent which will need to be secured before sending it for production. This patent will be strictly for the seat’s height adjustment mechanism and not for the overall design.
The target customers would be office workers with desk jobs because I was one of them in architect’s office. They typically sit in front of computer and work long hours without given a chance to move around much. My hope, especially in large offices, is to designate open space that includes high table/ counter that can accommodate standing chairs to be used for part of the day with computers spaced far enough apart on countertop. This standing chair is light weight and can easily be moved around to different parts of office by those wishing to work privately or for an impromptu meetings among coworkers. Other potential customers would be patients in a hospital or rehabilitation center recovering from leg injury, for example. This product could be used as an intervening device to get them to slowly regain strength and movement in lower body while also keeping upper body active by stretching, twisting and bending backwards. Artists, writers, security guards, IT specialists, announcers or anyone else whose job requires sitting down for most of the day could also be customers for this product.
What I found to be unconvincing in other so called “standing chair” on the market was the fact that however flexible or capable of tilting forward and sideways they may be, seats are positioned flat and horizontally in relation to the floor on which they stand. The seat on my standing chair is positioned at roughly 60 degrees – an angle that lets the user lean on it rather than sit on it as you would on a conventional chair. This leaning position also forces the user to distribute his weight to his legs. But my chair lets him distribute it to the third point of the body – arch of the spine, thanks to the backrest he can rest lower back, or thoracic curve, on. This not only prevents the entire weight being placed on the sitting bone – a source of much discomfort when sitting down for prolonged period of time but also keeps users from developing conditions such as peripheral edema and swayback. The backrest which is an integral part of the split seat is bent slightly backward in order to maintain good posture and to stimulate the back at all time to keep the spine flexible.
I did some research on historical precedence for standing chair and found that in churches of the Middle Age Europe and even in historic churches and cathedrals of today, front edge of the folded up wooden seat is widened and supported by “misericord” or mercy chair which acts as a shelf to support the weight of a person leaning on it for long period of prayer. Often, these misericords had elaborate carvings of grotesque looking human, beasts, animals, birds, foxes, mermaids, etc. Since bird carvings were more pleasant to look at, I wanted to know the name of the bird most commonly depicted and found out it was Halcyon, a mythical kingfisher bird known to calm a rough sea. Kingfisher bird is also known as Alcyone in Greek myth and is a name of the brightest star in the Pleiades cluster, and I thought this was a perfect metaphor for my standing chair with the bright and colorful seat, or seven main stars, located centrally and supported by many points along the twisting metal frame that are countless smaller stars of the furthest galaxy.
The project was divided into two major phases; analog phase and digital phase. Analog phase is subdivided into sketches, scale models and a full scale mock up. Digital phase is subdivided into 3d rendering on Rhinoceros and 3DS Max programs. For sketches, I used mechanical pencil with various lead grade, tracing paper, sketch book, light table for tracing old drawings, a small copier and a scanner for scanning my own sketches and photographs. For scale models, I used X Acto knives and a hotwire cutter to cut high density foam, hot glue gun to glue corrugated cardboards, spray gun to spray latex paint and a variety of hand tools to work with materials such as modeling clay, modeling aluminum wires, steel wire, 1/32” and 1/16” thick basswood sheets, aluminum pipes, small springs, epoxy glue, wire mesh and wooden dowels. For a full scale mock up which was built to test the comfort level of the seat at my own height, I used carving knives to carve the shape of the seat out of Styrofoam by hand and used table saw and band saw to cut 3/4” plywood to build a pedestal for the seat. For digital phase, my technical assistant and I used Rhinoceros, a 3d rendering computer program for initial low resolution rendering and 3ds Max program for high resolution and photo realistic rendering.
The seat’s height adjustment mechanism is probably the most unique aspect of this product and it was the most difficult part of the entire project. This was achieved through the use of steel cables attached to flexible prongs on both sides of the seat and they run through two conduits on each side that have PTFE flanged sleeve bearing inserted at both ends for minimal friction. These conduits or bent steel pipes are wrapped with Titanium metal support pieces that in turn are welded to vertical portion of the steel frame where the weight is transferred. The advantage of this system is that it uses push-pull forces generated by the curving cables and flexible prongs and suspends the seat. And regardless of the height position of the seat, it will not drop when the cables are unlocked and manual force is not applied to move it. Another unique aspect of this design is that it can be used as an
exercise chair with which users can perform a simple sit-and-stand movement by holding the thin edge of the seat and propelling himself up and down using only his leg muscles. This chair can be transported and moved around easily by tilting it back slightly and pushing it forward with minimal force when castors are engaged. It can also be
stacked by folding the flat portion of the steel base up and stored in closets in office, home or school.
exercise chair with which users can perform a simple sit-and-stand movement by holding the thin edge of the seat and propelling himself up and down using only his leg muscles. This chair can be transported and moved around easily by tilting it back slightly and pushing it forward with minimal force when castors are engaged. It can also be
stacked by folding the flat portion of the steel base up and stored in closets in office, home or school.
During the analog phase, I worked by myself for the most part. The most meaningful collaboration during this phase was the studio critique when I invited a couple of my design colleagues from outside. Their main critique of the seat I made out of Styrofoam was that the backrest needed to be softer, not rounded and pointed, and be more flexible so that it presses against tightened back muscles more gently. Another suggestion was that the seat height needed to be adjustable not only for accommodating people of different height but also for using it as a regular chair that they could sit at their normal sitting height. I agreed and incorporated all of their suggestions into my final design. For digital phase, I collaborated with an architect friend of mine who was very well versed in 3d computer rendering. His knowledge of Rhinoceros 3d rendering program lent itself well for organic shape of my standing chair design. It is an excellent tool for rendering with accuracy and applying details and reflective quality. And since I had already built a scale model at 3”=1’-0” with moveable seat built into it, he could take an accurate measurement from the model for the twisting steel base and the seat at different heights - area that cannot easily be drawn with accuracy on Autocad program - and render them in such a manner as to be ergonomically and aesthetically pleasing. For the final push, I asked him to refine the image so that the glossy quality of the steel base, prongs and conduits, saturated color of the seat, softness of the seat cushion and flexible quality of the fabric mesh would be shown with high degree of accuracy using 3DS Max program.
One important goal in coming up with the shape of this chair was to simulate the natural form of the human body as much as possible - its curve, flexibility, durability, aerodynamics and adaptability, among other characteristics - and to use the chair's vertical and lateral movement as well as its performance to address some of the physical problems we all have while working at a desk, such as lower back pain, bad posture, peripheral edema, and forward slump. To help achieve and maintain this natural curve, the shape of the seat and backrest as a unit follow closely the natural arch of the spine - the foundation of a healthy body and mind. Much of my research, then, involved talking to physical therapists and chiropractors and reading numerous articles online about the ailments and ill health effects of sitting too much. The Washington Post's excellent Health & Science section was another valuable research source that advocated for a healthier lifestyle and talked a great deal about the peril of our immobile modern lifestyle and what we can do to correct it holistically. Earlier in the design process, I built a full scale mock-up of this chair by carving a seat out of Styrofoam and placing it on a pedestal base made out of plywood, then testing it on myself at home. The current design came about around this time after I built a scale model at 3"=1'-0" using high-density foam, clay, and soft aluminum modeling wire. As further research into materials and fabrication methods for this product, I read "materials For Inspirational Design", on both metals and plastics, by Chris Lefteri, and I visited local metal fabrication and auto mechanic's shop to gain understanding of the properties of the materials to be used for my project.
This standing chair design consists of two separate components; Tactile quality and visual appearance of the product which is Design and mechanical and engineering components of this product that allows the kinetic movement of the seat propelled by human power which may be called Invention. Although, it is the invention part that makes it functional and practical as a standing chair, it is ultimately the Design that has a potential to appeal to users’ senses and feelings that lead to familiarity and attachment to this product. Another reason had to do with potential end users and where they live and I thought if I could first appeal to group of people most inclined to use this product and let them extol the virtue of this product, or disapprove of it completely, where else to find them but in European countries where more health and environmentally conscious people live per capita than anywhere else in the world. So my decision to enter this particular design competition was a conscious one. And instead of exhibiting it in the galleries as a stand-alone precious object, I wanted to share it with global audience, designers and non-designers alike, through an international competition that had enormous outreach and publicity potential.
Design Legend Interview
27 October 2020
I design more as a passion rather than as a full time occupation now. And even though, I no longer work for an architectural design company, I am interested in designing everything from household items and furniture to small scale residential houses – paying special attention to designing things that help people lead healthier life and using materials that help conserve energy and minimize adverse impact to the environment. Being exposed to diverse group of people unfamiliar with design process and industries other than design is also a good way to be motivated to design in areas that I would not normally be asked to design nor would ever occur to me to design on my own volition. And I think this is important, especially during a period of health and economic crisis we are in now and since “design” for most people is not a high priority, that in order to be motivated to design, one needs to go outside of a comfort zone and to feel empathy for problems that exist. As more people are working from home since movement and gathering by people have been restricted greatly by this crisis, it challenges our preconceived ideas about design in general and asks us to fundamentally rethink the way we design our built environment we used to take for granted. It is both an opportunity and a trial for us since it is a path we have never tread before. Areas of great demands for improvement, in my opinion, are the contactless objects, interior layout of homes and offices to reflect reduced workforce and more efficient interior ventilation system in public space that circulates clean and fresh air. Design for me is an empirical means to expand my horizon, to learn and appreciate other cultures and to improve the conditions and lives of ordinary people. Another good way for me to be motivated is to simply be observant of everything I see whether through walking in woods or viewing paintings and sculptures in museums. Sometimes, ideas seem to come flowing through my head when I let my mind wonder rather aimlessly and absorb all the variations, subtleties and colors of cloud patterns for example.
After leaving architectural office and going on my own, I have designed many things, though mostly small, that I was not aware that I was capable of designing. Furniture is still my bread-and-butter project only because I have been doing this for a very long time and exhibiting and publishing some of them. But I take great pride in knowing that I can also design other things such as an experimental car and a mobile shelter that I had recently designed to be used by outdoor scientific research personnel, airport ramp workers and natural disaster volunteers. An experimental vehicle is actually a combination of an ambulance and Covid-19 testing vehicle to be used in underserved rural areas and third world countries where many people do not have easy access to local clinics and hospitals so that the vehicle itself becomes a mobile testing clinic. An idea for the mobile shelter came about after I did volunteer work in earthquake and tsunami disaster zone in northern Japan 9 years ago. I designed it to be used by rescue workers and volunteers like myself since there was no break room or supply room that existed while we were working at the site with much destruction all around us. On a smaller scale, I am designing a backpack that can turn into a mini outdoor office space complete with folding table, chair, laptop compartment and Wi-Fi access, and magnetic door lock system with a kick bar at the bottom that eliminates the use of hand and they would be installed in public buildings such as schools, hospitals and offices. This project will be done in consultation with mechanical engineers. Having experience in putting buildings together in architects’ offices, I designed a small scale modular multi-family residences out of abandoned shipping containers that can be configured in multiple different shapes and sizes depending on family needs. I entered this into a competition several years ago and would like to expand on this idea further.
I do not know many so called “good designers” even though their work may be more widely available to many of us because of their reasonable price and clean modern design such as IKEA’s furniture. And when I think of great designers such as Aalto, Eames, Knoll, Breuer and Wright who left us with their iconic and elegant furniture and buildings that are, sadly, placed on such high pedestal that they are only accessible through museums (historic preservation site) and upscale suites and offices. I myself have never sat in one of their chairs, much less own one. The former is considered furniture for the masses that are factory mass-produced and the latter is fabricated in limited quantity with the highest craftsmanship that are more for elite modern furniture collectors and aficionados who can afford them. Neither are good nor bad, in my opinion. It is a difference between Toyota and Mercedes- Benz and is just a matter of taste and appreciation for good art and design. I do worry that conspicuous consumption tendency of modern era gives mass-produced items such as cell phones, appliances and even automobiles short life span and are discarded in great quantity – wasting resources and polluting the environment. And even though, we glorify Starchitects and great designers of today, I hope we will move more towards collaboration not just among designers but among many different professionals and expertise in order to arrive at best possible design solution that everyone can take a credit for having contributed. I myself work closely with master craftsmen in my studio and a professional 3ds Max renderer on certain projects in order to further refine and to incorporate new ideas I discover through both of our work and, I am sure, something like this can be done on much more complex and large scale design projects where multiple designers, artists, engineers and scientists can take part remotely even after the health crisis is over.
Good design should meet four criteria in my opinion. It must first and foremost serve the needs of users both from practical and emotional standpoint. Practical side meets immediate and short term desire of a user to fulfill his specific needs such as buying toys for kids that are safe and educational to use. Emotional side meets his long term needs as a designed object such as a sports car his parents used to drive him around as a kid becomes an heirloom to be passed down. Second, it must meet the market demand to ensure sufficient sale of a product when it is finally manufactured and third, it must use the most up-to-date digital technology. I always encourage people to use analog methods (hand sketches, manual drafting, physical models, color pencil and watercolor rendering, etc.) at the beginning of any project but to also possess an ability to convert those initial design ideas into three-dimensional software programs such as Rhino, Sketchup, Maya, 3Ds Max and Revit in order to be investigated, shared, critiqued, viewed and ultimately sold to as many people in different locations as possible. I also strongly advocate the use of 3d printer in medicine and biotechnology that saves and improves the lives of people. Zoom meeting people use a lot these days is a good way to communicate with people from other side of the world. Fourth, it should be elegant in form, use quality materials that are durable, long lasting and low maintenance, be ergonomically correct if it serves people such as a chair and a desk and have universal appeal by wider audience in different professions, income levels and genders. We are in the middle of paradigm shift both socially and technologically as I write this, and good design, regardless of the medium and tools being used, should be the result of collaborative and team effort and not just a visionary work of a lone designer working in isolation in his studio.
Charles and Ray Eames, Antonio Gaudi, Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, Gio Ponti, Buckminster Fuller, Eero Saarinen, Sverre Fehn, Steven Hall, Kengo Kuma, Shigeru Ban, Toyoo Ito, Isamu Noguchi, Taro Okamoto, Yayoi Kusama, Issey Miyake, Ikko Tanaka, David Hockney (his set design for theater), Dale Chilhuly, Sam Maloof (I met him at his studio in California), Lawrence Halprin, Maya Lin, Wang Shu, Ai Weiwei and countless master craftsmen from around the world working in traditional and vernacular forms.
Writings and essays by John Ruskin and William Morris. Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach. Less is More by Goldian VandenBroeck. Diffusion of Innovations by Everett M. Rogers.In Praise of Shadow by Junichiro Tanizaki. Wabi-Sabi (age-old Japanese aesthetic concept) for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers by Leonard Koren. Green Metropolis by David Owen. The Nature and Art of Workmanship by David Pye. The Craftsman by Richard Sennett
Designer Interview
10 May 2020
I have a broad based art and design background that started with fine arts education at UCLA since my original plan albeit still indecisive at the time was to be an independent artist traveling around the world exhibiting and promoting my art work. Some of my teachers were well known practicing artists who all taught me the importance of experimentation and pushing ideas through to the limit rather than simply acquiring techniques. It is not an overstatement after all these years that their teaching had tremendous influence on my artistic career regardless of the medium I am involved in. I only went into design field to supplement my fine arts study I was about to finish and soon realized that I could use design as a public expression of art instead of merely being an individual artist only interested in self expression. With fine arts education under my belt, I took series of design courses including graphic art, product design, textile, ceramics and industrial design taught by Nathan Shapira who studied under Gio Ponti and encouraged me to go into architecture. In architecture school, I studied with such progressive architects as Patricia Patkau, Julie Eizenberg, Carlos Jimenez, Ricardo Legorreta and Frank Israel. Through my career in public arena working on a variety of large scale building types, I always go back to those early days of studying fine arts and try to apply important lessons I learned back then to my design.
About 5 years ago, I left large architecture firm in Baltimore, Maryland to devote my time and effort on furniture design and small scale residential design. Currently, it is a large studio space that includes wood shop, laser cutting shop, milling machine room, drafting room and office space I share with two other highly skilled craftsmen. At the studio, there is a large inventory of unused materials for my personal use and for someone like myself who is interested in both design and fabrication, I consider this studio a laboratory space for creative inspiration that is rife with every materials and working tools one can imagine. Most of the projects I work on are furniture and product design that I build myself and I take full advantage of the shop’s fabrication and technical resources to concentrate on production of my pieces from concept to finished product.
I always believed that people who are very observant, actively involved in community, listen to people well, up-to-date on current issues and are open to other people’s ideas and suggestions are also good creative people whether they are musicians, writers, artists, craftsmen, poets or designers. So I try to adhere to that dictum because design as opposed to art has a profound effects on society and people living in it it. Where art may be one man’s expression of society’s state of affairs in general but design is a reflection of state of mind of society’s collective mass. Design is volatile and tied very much to economy and accessibility and like fashion it tends to come and go. Good design, in my opinion, should be accessible and durable to those with average means and not just to those with power and influence and should transcend momentary trend of a particular period. Good design that withstands the test of time is also the one that didn’t insist on its superior design or viability but deferred to opposing points of view and ideas and accepted both opportunities and limitations posed by various forces in society. On a more personal perspective, design means finding that seemingly unattainable solution one feels strongly about. Maybe I find it inadequate about the current product design that does not serve my interest so I’m prompted to come up with something better. So from early on, I learned how to compromise by listening, accept criticism from others, work in stages, set realistic goal, do a home work by knowing the materials and their cost, research up-to-date hardware or technology that is available, estimate how long it would take to design and build and suggest alternate design solutions as points of reference. And if you do all of these things, there is a greater chance of success in coming up with a design solution that would make both parties happy.
As an actor or an artist would say, it is the work I am working on now that I am most interested. Needless to say, designing is a full time job and if I am lucky enough to be designing something that is meaningful to me personally, it seems as if my whole life revolves around this activity. I feel this way probably because I do enjoy designing things and would not be satisfied until I am happy with the results. From my experience, this process is sometimes endless and painful and I consider designing to be not just a pursuit of solution but also a discovery process in areas I had not ventured into before. Having said that, I do gravitate towards designing architectural and furniture projects that are modular. On a smaller scale, I built modular cabinet out of plywood that consists of 14 individual pieces in the shape of cubes and cuboids that can be stacked together in several different configurations depending on size and location of the space within a house they are being installed.
There are many small scale projects I designed for companies I worked for such as a roof structural system for tram station at the museum in Los Angeles, upper level elevator extension for High School gymnasium in Minneapolis and a proposed drafting studio for an architecture school in northern Minnesota. But the project that is most indelible to me was the town square I designed for a small town in northern Minnesota when I was working for an architect there. It was primarily an outdoor landscape design project that included a wooden trellis, field stone fountain and terraced flower and plant beds. Layout of the square is modern in design as meandering walking paths essentially subdivide a square into different plants, flowers, shrubs and tree zones. They are accented by those structures that are placed strategically so that a visitor is forced to take a detour to investigate and to engage with each species of plants and to rest in a sequential manner, much like a traditional Japanese garden. It was made more unique by the fact that the clients of this project were people of the town including high school students, professional landscape company, banks and business people who all wanted to transform an abandoned block with dilapidated houses and they all volunteered their time to build it themselves under the supervision of landscape company
When I design and build my furniture and product pieces, I like to spend a lot of time sketching ideas I have in my head. This is my personal brainstorming session and I try to be ready to document any ideas that come in a flash at an unexpected time and place. It could even come while I am sleeping so I keep a sketchbook with me all the time. More formal sketches and hand drawings are done on larger tracing papers along with sketch-model building and this is typically the beginning phase of design and is also the most creative and satisfying phase of design process. When I look at past projects of mine, I am amazed to see a strong link between this simple idea represented in my initial concept sketches and a final product that retains semblance of original concept albeit in different shape and form after going through refining process as the project progresses.
In a complex world we live in, I believe it becomes ever more crucial to consider both social and environmental issues in evaluating design. No product design is considered to be successful if it uses child labor in the third country to produce it or if it is produced unsustainably by wasting and degrading precious natural resources. E-scooter in recent years is making visiting museums, restaurants and attractions in cities much more convenient, less physically exhausting and takes up less space on sidewalks than bicycles. But it make me think twice about its value if the greenhouse gases from manufacturing, collection and charging make them less green than walking or bicycling, not to mention many accidents it causes with pedestrians. Charles Eames’ Wire Chair, to me, is a successful design because it is a light weight product that can be carried and stored with ease and it is elegant in its form and appearance and durable in resisting minor bumps and kicks. Bike Trailer for kids is a good design because it is attached to the back of a manpowered bicycle which does not contribute to pollution. It catches two birds with a stone by allowing parents to bond with a child while exercising and saving them money by not having to hire a baby sitter. Rule of thumb, then, for design to be successful is that it meet users’ requirements both from aesthetic and practical point of view, it use production method that is sustainable and does not contribute to conspicuous consumption, it use as much natural and local materials as possible to harmonize with surrounding and it conserve energy in transportation and heating and cooling of buildings.
Having been in architecture field for many years, I see the urgency by many architects to switch their practicing methods and approaches from business-as-usual to ones that are more in line with the ever more rigid requirements of LEED, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, and its certification process. And this is a good thing if practitioners are truly concerned about the state of global environment and are taking proactive measures to reduce carbon emission through their practice. Burden of much of breakthrough efforts to mitigate environmental catastrophe falls on engineers, scientists and biotechnologists but designers are in unique position to promote these scientific achievements through collaboration to come up with new and innovative products that public can benefit from. There needs to be organizations that promote interdisciplinary approach to solving problems and to think more deeply about our environment every time hurricane devastates coastal cities or brush fires in California keep burning for months on end, destroying homes and adding more CO2 into atmosphere. The herculean efforts by doctors and nurses to save the lives of virus infected patients are prompting designers all over the country to make themselves useful by producing masks, face shields and Personal Protective Equipments on their 3D Printers and Sewing Machines and donating them to those in need. It is a deed I can only describe as admirable and courageous and it certainly makes me very proud to be a member of design community.
Unbuilt Washington Awards, 2018. I entered my residential design in theoretical projects category that refer to exploratory work without clients. CAD drawings and photographs of a scale model were exhibited and featured in AIA DC’s downstairs gallery space and website for 3 months. Series of small scale abstract foam models were also exhibited at the same AIA office in Washington DC just prior to my leading Model Making Workshop in 2012. I am working on another furniture project and when it is finished, I would like to exhibit it in local art gallery in town, though, there is no specific date or gallery I have in mind.
While I am not overly conscious of any specific style that would describe my work as a whole, such words as eclecticism and experimental might be more apt to describe both my furniture and architectural design as they do not fall neatly into a specific stylistic category. They are synthesis of diverse ideas, movements, cultural iconography I had seen in various places around the world. Cubism, Abstract Expressionism, Conceptualism, Dadaism of fine arts and Constructivism, International Style and Modernism of architectural movement are some of the stylistic elements that greatly influenced my work. But style is not restricted to these more widely referenced movements of the past. They can be found in narrow, cobblestone streets of a Greek island town, millennium old wooden columns in Japanese temples, crumbling mud wall of a church by the main square in Havana, Cuba, sedimentary red rock formation of a Grand Canyon or even in microscopic cell formation of a plant. These naturally occurring images and processes of degradation and corrosion are integral part of my surface and textural quality of my work that contribute to the development of style.
An experienced architect I met in Minnesota once told me “ It’s not where you Iive that matters for creative endeavor because your vision and character you already possess do not know any international boundaries that prevent them from being expressed.” After artists and architects of Bauhaus in Germany were forced to flee their own country after the Nazis in pre-world war two dismantled the school, some of the best works were created when they came to the states and continued to disseminate their movement’s principle ideals of bringing art back in contact with everyday life through teaching and practice. In the age of globalism and multiculturalism we live in, it is unfortunate that many people coming to the US from other countries are very quick to want to assimilate into mainstream of society by hiding their cultural heritage and to not contribute to diversity that brings us all together. I believe designers have both opportunities and obligation to impart cultural values and traditions through their work and let others learn and appreciate its endemic quality of the piece they are creating. I try to do this all the time by reinterpreting traditional forms and icons I respect very much and infusing those forms into my work in a subtle yet intelligible manner. A government may censor artists’ work for being provocative and critical of its policy, but it is the universal message they send to the rest of the world through their art work that transcends any censorship, political ideology or national origin.
Isamu Noguchi's paper lamp, ceramic dishes from Bizen, Japan, Alvar Aalto's glass vase, traditional mask made by African tribe and an old antique sewing machine part I picked up in a junkyard in Minnesota
This varies greatly among designers depending on their age, experience, education and medium they are involved in. I mentioned earlier about the importance of analog method in the process of creating my own work because it is the way for me to see, to be in touch with the physical world and to communicate with others to gain their input and feedback. Being confined to the digital ivory tower, some of the more underrated skills designers tend to overlook is the ability to be a diplomat who can negotiate with various agencies, industries and non design professionals that are not familiar with what we do as designers. More often than not, designers are not actively involved in politics and business dealings necessary to get the project completed and there are too many barriers placed between departments and different specialists within the company that prevent communications and idea-sharing that are so important in doing the type of collaborative work I talked about earlier for projects to be successful. So regardless of a person’s area of specialization, level of experience, ability to negotiate or read technical documents, diplomacy, while it is not the most important one, is always a good skill to have, especially at the beginning of the project that may require, say, going to a design review panel at the department of planning to procure an approval or to consult with healthcare professionals to gain their input on the physiological benefits of a medical product.
As I mentioned before, I use sketches and model building extensively during design phase. Computer rendering is useful at the beginning only if the project is large in scale and there is a need to put it in context. Google maps and its photographic images are always great tools in familiarizing with that context without having to set a foot in remote locale. Unless it is a research project, I do not read magazines or books to gain inspiration for the current project because an impetus to kick start any of my design project is concept based and any outside images I may see for inspiration are just distraction so I like to accumulate as much drawings and sketches of my own as I can which become my personal repository of ideas for the project. Some designers jump right into 3d computer rendering and feel comfortable, but the actual creative freedom that digital tools give you is rather limited and one-dimensional in my opinion because they become over dependent and tend to avoid contact with the physical world, not to mention the unhealthy work habits they can develop. Digital tool while it is useful for large scale project with massive layers and post-production rendering capability lacks tactility, ability to improvise, artistic vision in terms of color, texture and materials of the real world, accidental beauty like spilled coffee staining your drawings and models, and ability to change and manipulate designed object quickly. It is always a good idea to combine both methods because keeping up with the current technology is of utmost importance in a digital age we live in. As for me, a wood shop with a variety of industrial materials on hand and tools I work with such as pen, pencil, paper, hotwire cutter, laser cutter, milling machine, power tools and spray painting booth are just as important as computer renderings.
This project was fairly small and brief in length of time I was involved in but was significant in terms of my design contribution and construction detail drawings I developed on my own and the most fun I could ever expect to have in a creative office. I was assigned to design a company’s library space within the Minneapolis architect’s office. We chose translucent glass channels as an outside partition that enclosed the library space within. The glass channels of different height, mimicking the jagged exterior brick walls of a History Museum in which the office is located, were tied together with wires and attached to the vertical members of 3 inch steel tubes that were anchored to the concrete floor and a ceiling to support the weight of the channels and books. The interior wall/ bookshelves was laterally stabilized with horizontal members of steel tubes and 3/4 inch plywood shelves bolted down to the tubes and would have the width of about 14 inches which would accommodate those large Sweets catalogs, product catalogs and building code catalogs. There were no doors since this was an interior library space separated from the rest of office studio space where everyone worked. It was centrally located in a very spacious office with high exposed concrete ceiling so that it was visible from all angles of the office and was important that it presented well to visitors and consultants coming in from the front door.
Mostly artists, designers and craftspeople interested in my furniture work.
I recently designed a mobile ramp shelter to be used by large airport employees not having access to break rooms. It can also be used as a mobile clinic by extending seats at the back of a shelter for treating injured employees. It is similar to airstream trailers of the 50s in shape and size but the inspiration came from loading fiberglass containers onto airplanes at the airport in Minnesota I worked long time ago. I presented this to the airline company's management and they were eager to pursue it until the pandemic hit and was placed on hold.
E-mail is best.
Grand Interview
22 November 2024 · Alcyone La Sedia In Piedi
As you adjust the height of the seat component manually, vertical cables (2) attached to the seat with flexible prongs bend and stretch inward and outward slightly and by using this stress and friction between cables and conduits (4) attached to the stainless steel base frame, the seat is “suspended” at a precise height location that a user adjusts to. The threaded locks on the conduits assure that the seat will be secured and will not move. This is one of the main features of this product that I discovered as I was working with the scale model which was an indispensable tool not only for testing many ideas I had but also for rendering three dimensional computer model that allowed me to see the product from multiple angles. Because of the complexity of design and specialized equipment and resources needed, the final working prototype was never built to this date.
Even though I have been conscious of leading healthy lifestyle generally, I was contradicting myself when I found myself emulating bad workplace habits from my coworkers over the years. These included sitting all day in office, not getting up enough to stretch and exercise, developing lower back pain that resulted in medical treatments, etc. At the beginning of design process, I connected with my extensive experience in building architectural and exhibit design models using a variety of fabrication materials and wanted to see if I could experiment and come up with an innovative office chair design that would alleviate some of the health problems I was having. I started by selecting flexible materials such as steel cable, stainless steel, elastic cords, injection moulding materials and high-density foam that I had a lot of experience working on models but had little experience building full-scale prototype pieces with. My goal then was to combine my interest in addressing workplace health issues and designing everyday furniture piece that is functional, mechanically sturdy and aesthetically pleasing.
It was important to me that an individual user attain the ownership of this product and to feel comfortable using it to achieve the desired sitting position. The memory foam (SAF’s) attached to the seat shell with Dual Lock and elastic horizontal ropes of the backrest achieve this personalized experience. I also wanted users to be able to both “lean” lightly on the standing chair and to “sit” as if sitting in the conventional chair and thick memory foam attached to the concave shape of the seat shell achieves this purpose. Since everyone’s fitness and physical tolerance level is different, this chair along with height adjustable desks would be introduced as an alternative to the conventional workspace that can be used and shared with those who are simply interested in improving and maintaining overall good health.
The metal frame base is the structural foundation of the chair that must support the weight of a person sitting on it. And just like the Brno Tubular Chair Design, the base at the bottom is flat and more rigid and as it rises, the seat starts to “float” in the air. And the frame is twisted in order to make room for and accommodate user’s physical size and his or her sideway movements. To achieve maximum strength and durability, the frame base is made of continuous stainless steel piece held by web pattern that is broken only at the hinged (2) locations to allow the flat bottom base to fold up. Besides accomplishing functionality, the sinuous frame also simulates flexibility and twisting motion of the user while exercising.
There are three things that I learned from talking to physical therapists and chiropractors about how to prevent lower back and back muscle pain. These are; keeping good posture, building strong core muscle and avoiding tailbone fatigue. Keeping good posture means stretching thoracic curve of spine and not slouching and sliding bottoms forward on the chair. Building core muscle greatly reduces the burden placed on the lower portion of the spine - allowing the muscle and spine to work in tandem. Avoiding tailbone fatigue means not placing person’s entire weight on a single point of the body, glutes, for a long time because of the residual effects it may have on attached muscles, ligaments and tendons which also get injured easily. While these three clinical points greatly influenced my design process, I wanted to place just as much emphasis on maximizing the body movement, dynamic as opposed to static sitting positions and extent to which bones and muscles can be flexed periodically while working at the office for an extended period of time.
Repetitive sitting - standing exercise which is similar to sit-ups helps tighten core muscle, strengthens abdominal and neck muscle and keeps the blood flowing to every part of your body while you are at it. This can be done by keeping both feet flat on the floor, leaning slightly against the seat component, holding the edge of outer seat shell and repeating the sitting - standing motion by bending knees and straightening them. This way, you are strengthening quadricep and hamstring muscles as well as maintaining the proper thoracic and lumbar curve afterwards – an ideal orthostatic position. Twisting or rotation exercise is great for body’s stability, strengthening core muscles, improving posture and increasing flexibility in the hips and spine. And because it stretches tight shoulder, chest and abdomen muscles, it reduces the risk of injury particularly for those who are involved in athletic activities like myself. When doing this exercise, it is best to sit firmly on the seat to stabilize yourself since you are twisting your body in concert with the seat which also twists and stretches sideways. Stretching backward or back bending helps with spinal flexibility, improves posture, reduces stress and energizes nervous system. And this can be done with the help of the curving backrest. One simply needs to raise arms, lean against the backrest and slowly fall backwards and it let you stay at that suspended position for as long as you can tolerate.
As I mentioned earlier when I talked about the height - adjustable mechanism, the scale model for this project was an important design tool without which the final design solution would not have been achieved. The model was built using 2.5mm soft aluminum wire for modeling, 3mm aluminum tubing, 3mm spring, 1.5mm steel wire, sculpted and painted high density foam for the seat component, wooden dowels and fabric mesh for the elastic backrest. These were used to simulate the effects and movements of the actual chair as much as possible. As a sketch model (conceptual model in architecture term), it was not so much a precision model as a test model with rough edges to find out how different parts and components would work and react with each other. For instance, I wanted to see if the details for the height-adjustable mechanism I had sketched out earlier would work on the model and soon found out that bent conduits attached to the aluminum base frame would need interior bearing for the steel wire’s smooth entry and exit. Prongs and steel wire connection also needed to be rigid and made out of durable materials to prevent metal fatigue failure. The proportion of the steel base frame had to be correct both visually and structurally and be continuous from the base at the bottom to the push handle at the top for maximum stability and strength. I also wanted to see if there would be enough clearance between rear of the seat shell and upper portion of the metal base frame as a person moves the seat up and down to adjust to his or her desirable height. These tests could only have been done on the physical model and not in drawings when you are working with non-linear organic shape such as this standing chair.
I am amazed at how many innovative and cutting-edge office chairs are being introduced every year. There are now “smart chairs” that alert you to sit up straight when you slouch forward for a long time and to take a break and exercise after sitting too long in the chair. There is a shell shaped chair design that swivels around and has an outlet and USB port for recharging. It also has compartment at the wide base where you can store books, pens and papers and electronic devices. Now you can also bring your computer screen attached to robotic arm to you while you lie down in bed. All these inventions are great to use especially in large office space, rehabilitation center and community center for young, elderly people and students alike. But with the advent of Zoom, Skype and video conferencing that eliminate the need to go to the office anymore, I wonder if these devices including my chair will be in demand 10 years from now. With so many more people being health conscious nowadays, an ideal work situation for all of us would be to spend half a day in the office and spend rest of the day outside (weather and schedule permitting) either doing office work or working out. So that I do not envision my Standing Chair design to be influencing the future of ergonomic office design much but I do think that it would be appreciated and used by small groups of people - artists, craftsmen, doctors, therapists, cooks, elderly people and those trying to regain lower body strength after injury who are working in a more intimate work environment.
Actually, design process for this self initiated project which went through several phases started much earlier when I was doing just sketches and writing. It went through extended design process because I was working on this project after work and in the middle of other furniture design projects. During this time, I had an opportunity to observe office workers’ work habits, talk to healthcare professionals and to present drawings and a full scale mock-up at the local Design Soiree. The mock-up was built out of plywood for the base and the seat was carved out of laminated Styrofoam with a long blade X-Acto knife and a drywall file. The detachable seat was shaped to roll forward and backward on the plywood base so that the user could experience both sitting on the regular chair and standing (or leaning) against the chair at the same time and had many good feedbacks from them. I then started to design the chair in earnest during the summer of 2019, first building a model based on the success and failure of the mock-up and series of sketches I had done. I did the final hand drawings in scale on tracing papers before my architect friend and I started to model in 3 dimensional computer rendering program. I had also consulted with an auto mechanic who had an extensive experience bending steel pipes and tubes with CNC 3-D freedom tube bender that would be able to bend each section of my chair’s steel base before cutting and welding. All these interactions with professionals gave me both design and technical feedbacks that were extremely useful in coming up with my own chair design.
Having had a background in Fine Arts and Architecture, I have always been interested in both practical aspects of designed objects as in meeting safety standards and user-friendliness and aesthetic side of such objects be they chairs, desks, cabinets, counters, stairs or floor tiles in the bathroom that seem to elevate the spirit of the people who use them. And when they are exposed to such a stimulating environment at home and at work, they tend to be happier and come back to it time and again. This Standing Chair design was no different in trying to meet these dual objectives whether it was successful or not. And this is my way of saying that art is essential in everyday life and should not be confined to those who can appreciate and afford them. Everyone can benefit from it and they in turn could be inspired to be creative, physically active, lead healthier lifestyle and enjoy life more with those loved ones around them.
