Top 5 Chair Designs Built

We have had hundreds of participants joining Bamboo U since our inception in 2016, so it was not easy to choose which furniture pieces to feature in this article. But the following 5 pieces (presented in chronological order) testify to a careful understanding and a certain gumption in their design process:

• Chair by Ken Kochey (April 2019)
• Three Ring Chair by Jon Maddison (June 2019)
• Felix Chair by Bert Liang (January 2020)
• Chair by Haiqi Yu (January 2020)
• Commune Bench by Anina Rubio (March 2020)

Contrary to the other Bamboo U alumni in this article, Ken attended one of our shorter courses: a 5-day course dedicated to the art of bamboo carpentry and design. His design, a cantilevering chair built using bamboo laminated bamboo splits, was eventually developed into a series of prototypes at the PT Bambu Pure Factory. This is his account of his design journey:

“My experience with Bamboo U was very organic in many ways. I signed up without having a very clear idea as to what to expect but was immediately drawn by Scott’s Vandervoort enthusiasm and the nurturing environment the entire Bamboo U team created. I was always attracted to the idea of working with curves and the eloquence and grace that comes from them. I quickly decided on constructing a chair for my project and once that decision was made, the sketch took only a matter of minutes. While working on the miniature model, one curve led to the next until I could see what was possible and had what I was looking for.

Bamboo is the perfect medium for my interest in working with curves. The thin splits allowed me to bend and twist until the chair revealed itself in my model. 

I worked with the master craftsman for days, all with Scott’s encouragement and input, but half way through, I realized that I was not going to be able to realize my goal of building a working chair within 5 days. Instead, what I was making was not a final piece but rather a prototype. It was at this point that Scott approached me about the idea of taking this design to IBUKU and working in the PT Bambu Pure Factory with the craftsmen to fully realize the design. 

Working in the Ibuku factory was a real honor for me. It took some trial and error, and many different prototypes, but we eventually got the design to the point where form meets function. I could finally sit in my chair. It was such a satisfying experience and to this day, it is one of the things I am most proud to have done.”

Jon was one of our participants during the 11-Day Immersion in June 2019. After spending the first half of the course harvesting, treating and model making with bamboo, Jon dedicated his time to design a chair at the Carpentry & Design Station. The concept of his chair was modelled following the intersection of three different bamboo split rings and some on-site decisions which came after carefully model making his idea. The ergonomics of the chair were developed with the help of the carpenters and Scott.

“The idea of the three rings had been in my mind for some time, so I welcomed the opportunity to realise it during the Bamboo U Course. This experience was very much built by trial and error, made possible by Scott’s encouragement and support.

I began by sketching the design on paper then constructed a maquette using bamboo model making materials. Initially, I thought of using stretch material to form a sling-like chair and used some cut up tights to create the membrane in the model.

The maquette appeared to work as the bamboo material is quite flexible. However, replicating the model at full-scale proved almost impossible. To form a back to the chair that is higher than the seat, the lower element needs to be a proper ring whilst the other two need to be more oval. 

As we had no fabric material on site to create a sling, bamboo splits seemed the obvious choice to be integral to the structure’s design.

Originally, the splits were placed from the middle ring to the head of the chair, all to end in a single point. However, the first arrangement of struts proved unworkable as it put too much strain on the structure, and was visually too complex. Though I chose to have the splits running parallel to one another, the first variation did help me refine the design to its final form.”

Bert joined a special edition of the 11-Day Immersion in January 2020: the Pratt Institute Edition. With Scott Vandervoort teaching at the Pratt Institute in New York for over 15 years, it only seemed natural to have him bring some of his students to experiment with bamboo with us here in Bali.

The students from Pratt Institute brought an immense amount of creativity to Bamboo U. Though most had never experimented with the material beforehand, they allowed the material to shape their ideas to life and built objects ranging from a small desk lamp to a lounge chair. This is Bert’s account of the time he spent at Bamboo U:

“It was a great experience to model and prototype with bamboo. I started the design with a small model, through which I began experimenting with a lot of different possibilities with Scott. Most of the designs we initially modelled also were surprisingly consistent to be quickly prototyped with the help of those great bamboo carpenters.

Flexibility is the property that I like the most about bamboo. So, I made this lounge chair to reveal and celebrate this property. The laminated bamboo splits give an extension to the bend when one is lying on the chair. Additionally, as the cross strips are joined only by rope lashing and not rigidly fixed, they enable flexibility in another dimension. The name is Felix referring to both the flexibility and the “X” shape of the chair.”

Just like Bert, Haiqi was a student of Scott’s who came for the special edition of the 11-Day Immersion in January 2020. She designed a nursing chair fitted with a small barrier to help hold the baby at feeding time. As with most of the participants who attend Bamboo U, the process began with a model and many different iterations of the same idea. Eventually, Haiqi found a way to stay true to her original idea all the while adapting to the body’s posture in the most comfortable way.

“The 11-Day Bamboo Immersion is a very memorable experience for me. I decided to attend to seek any inspiration for my thesis development, and during the class I gained a deeper understanding of the relationship between furniture pieces and the human body’s posture.

Everyone at Bamboo U is from all corners of the world and we came here for different reasons, but in these eleven days, we went to class together, to work together and to explore the unknown of bamboo together. I learned a lot, not only from the class, but also from the way others treated bamboo, how they expressed their passion for bamboo, and how creative they were to explore the potential of bamboo. 

There was one situation that particularly touched me, and it also gave me a lot of inspiration. It was assembly day, and the last day to finish the model. The atmosphere was intense. For me, the bending of the splits the previous day had not been accurate, so I could not achieve the same effect in my chair as I had with the model. However, Scott came with fresh eyes. He suggested turning the sitting direction to the other side which made the angle make more sense. We held a bamboo strip that was supposed to be installed at the bottom of the chair and finally turned it into a handle that can be moved for nursing safety. This experience taught me that adjusting mistakes might lead to an even better design.”