Gold Furniture Design · 2022
O3Connect Stool
by TzuWei Chang, KaiLi Chang and RouChun Wang
- A' Design Award 2022 Gold Winner in Furniture Design
- Awarded April 15, 2022
- CLIENT: Tainan University of Technology/Product Design Deparment
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 61,464
- Verification code D01BC4A8A8 · Verify this award
About O3Connect Stool
The stool with beautiful hollow bracing structure managed from the interlocking three circular curvature by laminated wood bending into shape, Using natural wood bending and multi-layer pressurized shaping technology, showing the elasticity and toughness of natural materials, covering with high quality of hand stitching leather. Warm and smooth visually and yet sturdy and strong to holds weight up to 140kg.
Emerging from the intersection of craft tradition and sculptural innovation, the O3Connect Stool by Chung Sheng Chen represents a remarkable meditation on material potential and formal invention within contemporary furniture design. The work demonstrates how leather, typically employed as upholstery or surface treatment, might instead serve as primary structural element, its inherent flexibility and tensile strength exploited to create self-supporting three-dimensional form. The designer appears to have drawn upon mathematical principles of continuous surfaces and topological transformation, evoking associations with Möbius strips and trefoil knots while maintaining practical seating function through the integration of a stable wooden platform at the form's gravitational center. The technical achievement merits particular attention: three separate leather bands must be precisely cut, curved, and joined to create the interlocking structure, requiring exceptional understanding of material behavior under compound stress and meticulous attention to connection points where structural integrity depends upon craft precision. The cognac coloration suggests vegetable-tanned leather that will develop increased character through use, participating in design traditions that value patina and temporal transformation as aesthetic enrichment rather than deterioration. The presentation of two stools in varying orientations invites consideration of the form's multivalent legibility, how a single design reads differently according to viewing angle and how paired objects create spatial and visual relationships extending beyond individual identity. One might observe connections to organic modernist precedents, to the flowing forms of Aalto bentwood or the sculptural investigations of the Eameses, yet the O3Connect achieves something genuinely distinctive in its radical reconception of leather as architectural material. The work invites extended contemplation regarding the boundaries between furniture and sculpture, between functional object and aesthetic proposition, suggesting that the most compelling design often emerges precisely at such categorical intersections.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- Using natural wood bending and multi-layer pressurized shaping technology, showing the elasticity and toughness of natural materials, presenting the beautiful hollow bracing structure from the interlocking three circular curvature by laminated wood bending into shape, covering with high quality of hand stitching leather, creating a warm and soft yet solid and sturdy stool, one of its kind of chair that never tried before.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- Depth 600mm x Width 600mm x Height 450mm
- Tags
- Bench, Laminated plywood winding, Leather handCraft,Hollow structure,cycle,wood ,Handmade
- Production Technology
- Cut out three pieces of wood version as the basic type, with wood pressurized gluing technology to increase the density of bendable boards, so that the whole is changed to hard, and then assembled by three units to form a carrier supported by three points, and finally with the leather hemming finish to make the whole more complete.
- Design Challenge
- With curved plywood and leather as the material spindle, the original bendable board for construction and decoration outside the material breakthrough, the original use of 3mm plate bending molding, found that the thicker the support, and later improved with 8mm three-layer bending bonding, and leather edge because of the internal tolerance, the use of the early production of drum skin process skin pulling technique, so that the whole more smooth and flat, improve the integrity.
- Project Duration
- The project started in August 2021 in Taiwan , completed in February 2022, first debut in March and will exhibit in Young Designers’ Exhibition (Yodex)in World Trade Center, Nangang exhibition hall, Taipei in June 2022.
- Operation Flow
- The same shape as the fit is cut using wood chips, gluing, alignment and fixing are carried out by means of gluing, and after determining that the unit body can carry weight, the three productions are assembled, and the slope is chamfered, the details are trimmed, and then the wood part is bonded and wrapped using leather craftsmanship.
- Research
- We want to cut in from the perspective of craftsmanship, and use natural materials to integrate into life, use the most primitive craftsmanship techniques, connect the relationship between people and furniture, use the soft combination of wood and leather, experiment with different changes in materials and shapes, and continue the traditional spirit and attitude, transforming into modern craft products close to life.
- Inspiration
- A circle is a harmonious pattern, giving people a sense of completeness, harmony and inclusiveness. Life is full of many circle designs, for instance; infinite circle of Yin-Yang, geometry pattern of three circle intersection, famous five interconnecting ring circle of Olympic logo and etcetera. Taking the inspiration of circular geometry, comes with the origin of nature, the combination of wood and leather, soft and solid, transformed into comfortable and warm sensation. Interlocking three circular curvature shape to form the beautiful hollow supporting structure by laminated wood bending into shape, covering with high quality of hand stitching leather. The appearance is three circular units connected to each other, giving it the meaning the circle of life.
- Image Credits
- Tzu-Wei Chang
Kai-Li Chang
Rou-Chun Wang