INDN 342: Sketched Development of the H-03 (Temporary Name)

After coming up with the idea and concept for this design, I sat down in PreFab and had a coffee (or two!) and sketched away at the design, trying to pull it apart and figure out how it might work.

 One of the most challengind and difficult aspects of the design was thinking about how the legs were going to work for the design. The part that made it challenging was that the small underside extension from the stool design got in the way of all the optimal leg positions for neighboring stools. On the bottom drawing above, the red hatched sections represent the locations of all potential underside extensions from other stools joining up with the first stool. These also then represented all the places that the legs could not go.

 To solve the stool leg conundrum, I decided to put a slot in the underside extension that allows a leg to occupy the same space as the red sections. This is key, as I was very concerned about the stability of the stool, especially since it is inherently such a strange, oblong shape. I'd be worried about creating a stool that falls over, especially if it ends up being kind of heavy!

This slot opened up a lot of new opportunities for the design. One of my concepts involved the slot being something that served a function beyond just being an interlocking point for the stools. I wanted it to be something people might use. Perhaps in interesting, cool ways, such as cup holders, hooks for hanging small things, or more.

However, that's when I realised there was a problem with the straight slot. While it works really well for simple connections, such as the top and bottom red hatched sections, it posed a big problem for the main feature of the design, namely the ability for the stools to be slotted together as one big three-piece table.

AS a result, I had to do some rethinking about what I could do to still maintain the functionality of the modularity of my designs, while also still getting my design to still be aesthetic and function in the same way. The straight slot wasn't going to do that, so I decided to test out a curve slot. The curved slot would allow any stool to be turned out from the hexagon, enabling easy manipulation of arrangements.

The rotational revamp would enable people to easily manipulate the configuration of the stools. I don't want to design something that's difficult to put together or take apart, so ensuring what will work well is really important.