A North Yorkshire furniture designer who was commissioned to create a contemporary three-legged chair has come up with a hi tech solution to the challenge.
David Wilson of Dovetailors said the solid maple and steel design, which has a single leg at the front, would have been impossible to build without the help of computers.
David Wilson said:
The mathematical calculations required to create the chair meant it could only be done by computer, a perfect example of how technology is assisting the evolution of furniture design.
This isn’t computers making our lives easier, it’s more a case of them helping us push the boundaries of creative design to produce results that would never have been possible using traditional techniques.
The finished chair uses a combination of maple and steel and every piece of wood either curved, tapered or both.
David explained:
With a single leg at the front and two legs at the back, the design depends on aesthetically pleasing mitres at every joint – fundamentally weak in their traditional form but strengthened with the use of concealed steel to produce an incredibly robust and minimal chair.
The customer wanted the three-legged design so that the chair would rest steadily on an uneven stone floor.
People come to us because they need something specific that they can’t find in the shops and we work through the challenges presented to us and come up with a solution.
Computers don’t always provide the best solution and more traditional furniture making techniques are often needed or a combination of the two.
He said it was not unusual for Dovetailors to receive requests for obscure or unique designs.
Dovetailors has a selection of contemporary design work available to view at its gallery near Harrogate next to Mackenzies Yorkshire Smokehouse.
