Jill Cartagena

Jill described how she conceived her chair, a modern take on a classic Adirondack, from Pinterest inspirations through sketch iterations and foam study models to two full-scale mockups. Jill had never set foot in a wood shop before, so she set gaining proficiency with the tools and equipment as her top priority. Her design benefitted from its symmetrical elements, which made the build a bit easier, though Jill admitted that the curved plywood seat presented complexities that she had to overcome.

Misha Semënov-Leiva

Misha admitted that his biomorphic chair was an exercise in reducing complexity to meet practical requirements. He imagined a chair whose seat levitated with magnets, which proved unworkable. He ran with the concept though, using Teflon furniture glides to suspend a walnut hemisphere that he carved on a lathe using a clever pivoting cutting jig. Curved legs of Baltic birch plywood suspend the seat within a bent oak frame whose joints disappear. The seat and lumbar area are covered with a fabric whose color was inspired by the brilliant paprika carpeting in Paul Rudolph’s Art & Architecture building at Yale.