For this project, the brief challenged us to design and carefully craft a flat-pack chair, suited for a contemporary interior dining space. The chair needed to support up to 125kg, primarily made of timber (upholstery was not allowed) and pack down to four components at most.

At the core of our design was taking the 2 dimensional nature of flat-packs and breathing a unique dimension into it. The beginning of our design process was driven by using our timber in a conservative fashion, without limiting ourselves to the material’s square form. The solution was laminating timber to create curved, fluent lines.

Made from 100% euro beech, sustainably harvested timber, the chair consists of two legs, seat pan, and backrest, fixed together using two bolts and 4 dowel fixings.

Making the legs was the most complicated part of production. Creating the strips involved slicing the timber on a tables saw, and finishing them to 3.5mm using a thickness planer. Steam bending was key to forming the shape we’d designed in CAD, steaming the sheets in 1 to 2 hour batches per leg. A mould was laser cut based on the CAD file, clamping the strips inside to dry for 24 hours. The legs were released and laminated using specialised wood glue, clamped for a further 24 hours to cure. A final pass through the thickness planer produced the flush edges and finished shape. Repeated 4 times, the final legs were cut to level, milled, joined and drilled for fixings, forming the final design.

Named Helix, the sophisticated contemporary dining chair balances sinuous lines with the practical timber seat structure.