Re-Creating Wright’s Origami Chair

Hack Factory member Susan Solarz is working on an intriguing project — a re-creation of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Origami Chair. She began by building the plywood foundation (with no right angles) and constructed a butt-shaped seat out of spray foam.

One of the original’s design flaws is a tendency to tip forward. Susan used this to her favor by adding rockers.

Determining the arc of the rockers turned out to be quite a research project. Eventually, I found a simple formula for finding the length of the radius of the circle from which the arc should be drawn. That is seat height x pi. I brought my model and 2 tubes to a steel-bending expert.

Susan’s next step is to add a few more coats of paint. It’s nearly done!