MIT students, in collaboration with the American furniture company Emeco, are experimenting with futuristic chair concepts for an exhibition titled 'The Next 150-year Chair.' The prompt is directly related to Emeco's archive—more precisely, it is inspired by Emeco's 1006 Navy chair. Created in 1944, the premise for the piece was that it would last 150 years.
A total of five futuristic chair concepts will be part of the exhibition. The materials of these designs are imaginative—from 3D-printed liquid metal to a single sheet of recycled HDPE. Other students embraced new ways of assemblage. Masters student María Risueño Dominguez, for one, developed the La Junta concept—"a cast-aluminum joint with multiple different inserts shaped to fit a variety of components."
Futuristic Chair Concepts
MIT Students Explore “The Next 150-Year Chair”
Trend Themes
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Industry Implications
1. Furniture Manufacturing - Opportunity for furniture manufacturers to experiment with new materials and techniques to create unique furniture pieces.
2. Sustainability - Opportunity for companies to shift towards using more recycled and eco-friendly materials in furniture design to reduce environmental impact.
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