Borrowing from the legacy of brutalism: a contemporary concrete furniture set

This year my classes all converged in a way that allowed me to make furniture that I felt went together well as a set. I was required to make lamps for one class and “soft” furniture for another. I approached these assignments with the intention of making them fit together. How could I make them fit into a space where they all belonged? I considered the forms and materials I would use to create cohesion between the pieces. I wanted them to look modern and appealing to a contemporary audience.

The first piece that I considered was the seating I needed to make for my Forms and Textiles class. This would be the piece that I needed to make soft. I had the idea for a chair that was very sculptural in appearance. I came up with the original drawing and conceptual model and loved the contrasting curving and linear forms. It was a chair that didn’t necessarily read as a chair. I also wanted to approach the idea of “softness” from a counter-intuitive standpoint. I explored the use of materials like concrete and bent wood to create juxtapositions of form and material to create a piece that appeared soft without the use of physically soft materials.

Once I had landed on the concept for the chair, I used the same ideas to move towards the other pieces. Everything had to relate back to the chair and interact and bounce off of this central piece. I made a rug and a lamp that used curved lines and silhouettes to oppose the heaviness and coldness of the chair base and bring a warmth using light and wool.