The Puzzle Chair is a compact, flat-pack cardboard dining chair, which uses slotted, dryfit components for quick and easy user assembly.

The chair has  seven goals: shippable, ergonomic, sustainable, compact, affordable, easy to assemble, and fit for small spaces. My solution is inspired by 3D wooden puzzle and snowflake building model, which is using slotting as the manipulation. And 3D wooden puzzle and snowflake building model are all children’s toy, which represent “puzzle” chair is a light, small, and playful chair.

“Puzzle” chair started with an exploration of slotting in a sketch model which evolved into a method of assembly for the chair. On the basis of ensuring the lightness of shape and weight, making the structure is stabilized is the biggest problem in completing this chair.

In the first full-scale model (as shown in the figure), the chair has problems such as the armrest not being able to bear the weight, the chair leaning forward, and the seat shaking side to side. But these problems have been improved in the finished product, making the chair more stable and comfortable.

Although the “Puzzle” chair is small, it makes people feel comfortable when they sit in this chair, which is another point that this chair needs to reach. So when designing the puzzle chair, it was reduced the size of the chair as possible as it could be. Now the size of the puzzle chair is minimized ergonomic chair size. The height of the seat is 1 ‘-4″, the height of the armrest is 10 1/2″, and the angle between the seat and backrest is 105 degrees. This achieves the design requirement that the chair is lightweight but does not feel uncomfortable when sitting in this chair.

Customers can easily install and disassemble. “puzzle” chair, which approached the requirements of flat-pack. In transportation, you can maximize the rate of utilization space as much as possible to save on shipping costs. On the other hand, this is also eco-friendly. Because it can be flat-pack, it can reduce the consumption of fuel, thereby reducing the amount of carbon dioxide emissions, thereby protecting the environment.

The total cost of puzzle chair is 31.47 dollars per each, which includes laser cutting fee 15 dollars, materials fee 16.47 dollars. This is an easy assemble chair, so the customer will assemble by themselves. Therefore, there won’t be an assembly fee costing. The suggested retail price of this chair is 48 dollars per each, which is 1.5 times of the wholesale price.