AEROCHAIR
Authors: R. Duque Estrada, M. Wyller
The project AeroChair is an exploration of how computational design tools and simulations can enable the material itself to be a design driver, and how the integration of modern technology and material research can lead to novel design expressions.
The result was a hanging chair made of woven carbon fiber composites with a total weight of 300g.
Carbon fiber composites are lightweight, strong, and can take large tensile forces, it is however also expensive, difficult to work with, and not biodegradable. Using computational design tools, a design and fabrication principle that allows for optimized use of the material and leaves zero material waste was developed.
The fabrication process was inspired by how a spider initiates its web construction by using a few initial fibers for further winding. From a few strands of pre-impregnated carbon fiber strands suspended from a simple frame, the complex pattern that would compose the chair could be weaved.
AeroChair was presented at the eCAADe SIGraDi Conference 2019
The project was developed in the context of the Material and Structure Seminar (lead by Prof. Hanaa Dahy) and the ITECH MSc. Program at the University of Stuttgart