dumbell feature seating by graham blackmore from australia

“DUMBELL” Feature Seating
DIMENSIONS: H 0.7m x W 0.7m x L 0.7m
Entered is “Dumbell” feature seating. A 1to2 -seater lounge chair suitable for commercial, corporate, or institutional breakout areas, foyers, waiting areas, domestic lounge rooms. Designed to be sold as a self-assemble, flat-pack kit. Could be accompanied by other products in the range not shown namely, 4-seater lounge chair, ottoman & or coffee table, single-seater stool and modular shelving.
“Dumbell” is constructed from recycled, sustainable, locally produced materials, utilizing existing, simple, economical manufacturing methods.
Collaboration with the cardboard manufacturer would be sought to produce a raw material with suitable properties; namely fire-rating (fire-retardants), add colour to the actual cardboard (organic dyes)so that as the edges fray with use, an attractive’ patina’ is created, water-resistance, screen-printing of cardboard faces with “wallpaper patterns”, custom sheet-size to minimize wastage.
idea was to produce the greenest, cheapest, mass-produced chair possible.
Inspiration for the design came from several sources:
The shape of the piece drawn from ‘futurist’ forms that I’ve always been attracted-to, from “The Jetsons” as a child to the “sinuous line” of Henri Vande Velde and the beautiful, organic forms of Carlo Mollino and Antonio Gaudi as an adult.
Material and engineering considerations came from my earlier professional experiences with the use of cardboard as a light, strong, versatile material that that could be well-utilized in the full-scale construction of architectural elements in sets for the film industry.
Skills in 3D-design software enabled me to truly realize creating virtual prototypes and fully documenting the design. After extensive development in ‘3DStudio Max’, a layout for each part was produced in ‘Autocad’ , the file given to a Laser-cutter to produce MDF templates that were simply traced onto cardboard panels to create the first actual 1-to-1 prototypes.
As stated above, the use of eco-friendly materials was a primary consideration in the development of the design from the beginning ……..and sustainable, in that it would (& should) be economically viable to produce the product totally onshore, simply tapping-into existing (low-tech) local packaging-industry mass-production technology & infrastructure.