Jan. 9, 2004
Contacts:
Architecture Department, (805) 756-1316
Ray Ladd, (805) 756-7432, rladd@calpoly.edu
Howard Weisenthal, (805) 756-2491, hweisent@calpoly.edu
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
2004 Cardboard Furniture Show and Competition Set for Jan. 15
at Cal Poly
SAN LUIS OBISPO -- Cal Poly architecture students will once
again be learning valuable – if unusual – lessons on how to
create comfortable and esthetically pleasing chairs when they compete
Jan. 15 in the Cardboard Furniture Show and Competition.
They will display their corrugated creations from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. inside the Gallery of the College of Architecture and Environmental Design (CAED), Building 05, Room 105. Admission to the show is free, and the public is invited to view the chairs and even sit in them so that they can cast their vote between 1:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. for the “People’s Choice” award. The winner of this category, which will be a blend of the most comfortable and the most aesthetically pleasing design, will be announced at 4:30 p.m. along with other categories such as “Most Innovative Design” and “Best Use of Materials.”
More than 50 students in two fundamental architectural design classes
have designed and constructed the furniture made from only two 4-foot-by-6-foot
sheets of cardboard and quarter-inch cotton string, without the benefit
of either glue or tape. The show’s faculty advisors this year are
architecture professors Howard Weisenthal and James
Bagnall.
Weisenthal said the one-week assignment combines problem solving, construction detailing and ergonomics. Documentation of the designs will be available after the event.
"The students won’t get wet this year as they usually would
at our Cardboard Boat Regatta. This year the test will be for them to
construct the chairs to not fail over the course of the daylong exhibit,”
he said. “They’ll also be required to use the chairs daily
in their studio labs for the duration of the quarter, so they’ll
have to be built to last and
hopefully incorporate a comfortable design.”
Bagnall continues, “You rarely see chairs made out of such a minimal amount of cardboard. Because of these limitations the students must re-think what a chair is and be creative to find innovative solutions.”
San Luis Paper Company of San Luis Obispo is co-sponsoring the competition with the CAED. They have generously donated all of the cardboard and cotton string in association with Textile Brokers Co. of Gardena, CA, Tharco Container of Santa Fe Springs, CA, and Shurtape Tech, Inc. of Hickory, NC.
“The Cardboard Furniture Show and Competition is a very challenging and fun way to showcase our product,” said Doug Hoffman, president of San Luis Paper Company.
Top awards for the for the competitors will be provided by two Cal Poly alums: Carl Zdenek III, a 1986 graduate of Cal Poly’s architecture program and founder and principal furniture designer of Soma Ergonomics, and Eric Pfeiffer, a 1992 grad from the landscape architecture program and designer/owner of Offi & Company, producers of home and office furniture. The awards will be in the form of designer furniture.
For more information, call the Architecture Department at 756-1316.
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