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Qubique Preview: "Free Fall" Chair by Ezri Tarazi

By Ray Hu - October 21, 2011

in Furniture Design | Design Festivals

When professor Ezri Tarazi isn't busy teaching at Bezalel Academy for Art & Design, he's doing... industrial design, the domain of his expertise. For his latest design, he starts with a few perforated metal sheets that have been folded a trapezoidal volume and ends up with a chair that he calls "Free Falling." Anyone care to venture any guesses as to how Tarazi arrived at the final form?

Just one more hint before the production video (after the jump):

Incidentally, it's yet another clip set to a potentially objectionable soundtrack—and frankly, the typography is questionable as well—so don't say I didn't warn you...

If you can't tell from the gravity of the video—enhanced by slow motion and, again, the choice of music—the mannequin is filled with concrete, weighing in at roughly 100kg. Hence, the holes in the sheet metal, which allow air to escape during the free-fall process.

But this isn't just an excuse to ironically reference Tom Petty; on the contrary, the work is intended to plunge into the very nature of design and production. The concept, then, is to "create a chair by human figure, not tools"—we'll give Tarazi a pass on the pulley—who "shapes the seat in one drop."In the history of design there are many metal chairs that was made by press of heavy industrial machines or hand tools and this chair was designed by the sitting human figure mannequin. The metaphor can have many interpretations, but the main idea behind it was to raise questions about the role of design and the human situation today.

Perhaps Tarazi is referring to another memorable instance of a designer literally launching an assault on design: Marijn Van der Poll's "Do Hit" chair (video below) for Droog was also a smashing success (too easy?).

He's dropped the load on three out of the seven total chairs that he's planning on fabricating; they'll be on exhibit with Tel Aviv's Paradigma Gallery during Qubique: Next Generation Tradeshow in Berlin, from October 26 – 29.

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rabidchi

12 years ago

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"Mythbusters" screenwriters probably come up with processes like this 100 times a day.
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Le Student

13 years ago

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Maybe he'll sell you one uncrushed and with a hammer so that you can vent your frustration at having spent a million dollars on a chair...
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octo

13 years ago

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great - another stupid chair design that costs a million dollars
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Dan

13 years ago

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"Articles" like this show up on this blog way too often. Some of the things that pass as "design"...
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Alberto Villarreal

13 years ago

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Maybe interesting for the sake of experimentation. As a mockup. But as a product it looks very uncomfortable and very ugly.

It's funny how some people push really hard to do something different around a problem than has easier ways to solve it, while other, more important problems are still unsolved.
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John Wilson

13 years ago

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The mannequin is just as much of a tool as any industrial machine or hand tool is. It just happens to be a tool in the shape of the human figure.

It's actually an inferior tool, and it creates what looks like a seat with a horribly uncomfortable shape.

If the goal is to create a chair based on the human form, this is a really inferior way of doing it. I don't see any innovation or creativity here, just a bad idea.

I give the "professor" an F.
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Paul Pickard

13 years ago

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This instantly reminded me of this:

http://www.codex99.com/photography/43.html

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