Chairs from the School of Design’s Chair Practicum that were exhibited during NYCxDESIGN week at ICFF.
The School of Design in the College of Visual and Performing Arts is one of only 13 schools selected to exhibit during NYCxDESIGN week at ICFF, which was held May 14-17 in New York City’s Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. The school exhibited its Chair Practicum, which introduced the results of the fifth-year senior industrial and interaction design (IID) students’ semester-long collaboration with New York State furniture manufacturers Stickley, Wendell Castle’s Icon and Offi, along with mentor and designer Harry Allen.
ICFF is the premier North American global design showcase for interior furniture, seating, carpet and flooring, lighting, outdoor furniture, materials, wall coverings, accessories, textiles, kitchen and bath and fabricators, attracting more than 700 exhibitors and 32,000 attendees from around the world. Dozens of universities, colleges, art and technical schools from across the nation applied for the chance to exhibit at ICFF, with the pool of submissions highlighting the best from undergraduate and graduate student programs and featuring innovative, forward-thinking theories driving tomorrow’s design practices and meeting today’s design challenges.
“The exhibitions chosen for this year’s ICFF Schools program showcase what’s new and what’s next from design futurists currently enrolled in the top design programs,” says Kevin O’Keefe, ICFF event director.
For the Chair Practicum, the IID students combined site visits to each factory with input from manufacturers and Allen to work progressively toward the design of a chair prototype. The students were asked to consider material and process, production constraints, market directives, price points and ergonomic human-factor issues in relation to the manufacturers/clients as well as the psychological function of products. They were also encouraged to investigate the history of furniture in the region and understand cultural context and identity along with metaphor and memory.
Allen and the manufacturers selected the chair prototypes to be exhibited at ICFF. The installation was designed in collaboration with the School of Design’s environmental and interior design program.
