The Cloud Lounge is a sculptural chair for reading, relaxing, and small space living. The novel form is made of prehab cardboard formwork tubes, slotted together to make a structure with rolled cardboard seating. 

Goals

Ergonomics → The inspiration is from the Hans Wegner chair, which has a curved seat and back to make it comfortable for the user to sit on. 

Sustainable → My chair uses a minimal amount of cardboard for the base, and the seat is completely recycled corrugated cardboard.

Easy to assemble → It is easy to assemble since my chair only has one assembling technique, which is slotting.

Desirable → Cloud Lounge is a desirable chair for its unique design being a sculptural piece that can be an accent point in a space.

Percedents

Shell Chair – Hans Wegner

The ergonomics ideal of my lounge chair is inspired by the Shell Chair by Hans Wegner. I like how Wegner curves and slightly sloped the seat to make it comfortable to sit on. The curved seat with a light slope hugs the body, which makes the client sit on it with ease.

Marshmallow Sofa – George Nelson

The aesthetic of my lounge chair is influenced by the Marshmallow sofa by George Nelson. I like how the circular shape stands next to each other creating an inviting look for being rounded that gives the user a comfortable feel.

Papercraft bowl

The curving seat is made by joining cellular shapes of circles inspired by the paper craft bowl works. The connection between each of the handcrafted rolls created an aesthetically pleasing appeal aspect to the chair, giving it a unique essence. Thus, how the rolls are tied together gives a bonding feel as strips of material are running along the border following the curves that the circles create.

Design Development Studies

Structure 

When making the full-scale model chair, I changed the material and the shape of the base. The structure of my lounge is created by prehab cardboard formwork tubes. I chose this material because of the ability to keep the circle shape when stacked on top of each other. If I use corrugated cardboard, the circle will deform since the material is not as strong compared to the tubes. 

The first four layers of the chair structure are layered using a 14-inch tube. The first few flat layers have no problem until they get to the first slanted layer of slotting. This layer has given me an overview of how the base would look like, and there is a problem with slotting the tube slanted. The slanted slots are flatter than how I imagined they would be, it does not curve the way that I wanted it to. 

Seat

Figuring out how to bond the curves together so it does not break the connection when applied pressure takes a while. I was experimenting with cardboard rolls with different thicknesses and joining techniques. The first trial was a 2-inch thickness roll gluing together to create a curve like how I did with the small model. However, making it to scale is a problem with this technique when it is challenging to make a curve and if it did, the connections between each roll are fragile. 

The second trial was making the rolls 4 inches thick and adding small pieces of cardboard in between the joints at the bottom. This helps to tilt the rolls as I join more cells, and the curve will form as I join more. The cons of this technique were it was heavy by the thickness of each roll. Also, the weight drags the surface making the bond separate and eventually breaking its connection.

Design Solution

Cloud Lounge Details

Structure Exploded view

Elevation & Section