Rocker Stool - inital concept

The other morning I finished some initial concepts for some rocker stools (which I've been playing with for about 3 months now) and decided to do a quick render of them - the lighting is bad and textures aren't right but you'll get the idea. This particular stool will be made primarily from Marine Ply or Bamboo and have a number of 10mm dowel rods running through them for both strength and aesthetic. While Marine Ply and Bamboo are the desired materials, I've come across some nice work by Ryan Frank that makes use of recycled ply, particle board and other materials. His work is challenging my idea of the optimum materials to use, something that I will need to sort out in the coming months.What isn't showing in the render is some of the finer detail which I've intentionally left off, I don't want to give everything away. :)

The purpose of a rocker stool is to overcome what appears to be an inate desire almost every person has - which is to rock on any stool from the moment they site down. Through my observation and conversation it has become fairly clear that people have a tendancy to sit down and throw their pelvis back, thus lifting the front legs of a stool. Worst yet is I see people sit down and throw their hips from side to side which creates a harsh rocking motion from one side of legs to the other. Why people do it I don't know, but I do know that it quickly reduces the life expectancy of stool legs and places a load in a direction that most stools are not designed to. The rocker stool will attempt to address these load issues and user desires in a somewhat aesthetic manner (see note above about deliberately leaving detail out of the render).

The rocker stool can be flipped over to be a stationery stool should the user not wish to have the rocking motion. I see this stool's working life to be mostly in cafe's and funky little coffee joints around the world yet being an accessible and viable piece in anyone's home. Whilst I am showing a bare wood stool below, there will be a felt padding that can be attached to either side of the chair via magnets. When not in use the magnets will hold this felt to the underside of the seat area. Both seat areas have a a small lip on the underside to allow for magazines and newspapers to be placed into the base without the sliding out while rocking.


As always here's your eye candy: