Dicteé Art and Exhibition

The Chair Class – by Joseph Lambert

Artist Statement

As an instructor in the Architecture Department at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill,
I had the opportunity to teach a chair-making class for the last nine years.
After a 5-week immersion in problem-solving and model-making, the students would
spend the next 7 weeks discovering and building a chair of their own design which
fulfilled 4 constraints, otherwise known as ‘principles of design’.

The first 2 constraints were universally imposed on the class as a whole:

1) Each student was allowed to use a single 4’x4’ sheet of 1⁄2” Baltic Birch plywood,

2) The vast majority of their chair must be produced using a Shop-Bot CNC router.

The remaining constraints would be established by the student prior to any actual
design work, self-imposed as 2 conditions the chair would fulfill or 2 problems their
design would resolve. Sample student-constraints included; a toy, a seat for two, rocking,
curvature, adjustable, perspective, alternate uses, minimalized waste, specialized joints,
no mechanical fasteners, stacking, designed for a particular purpose or place,
specific limitations, and making multiple chairs from the limited material available.
Inspired by the creativity of these students, I would often take on the assignment privately
so as not to compete with their efforts.

The chairs presented here are the product of that challenge.

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Special appreciation is offered to the DVC shop-master, Bob Logan,
whose invaluable assistance and dedication made the chair class possible.