The Stump II is designed so that it is held together without any nails or glue - only tensioning wires. The core intention of this stool is to create an organic form through inorganic components. In this case, these inorganic components are flat, two-dimensional pieces of plywood. These separate pieces interlock and combine in a puzzle like fashion to create a three-dimensional skeleton. When completed, this skeleton of flat parts creates a visual illusion of solidity. The stool is visually comparable to a naturally organic form, a tree stump. This familiar shape helps people brains fill in the gaps between the ribs as they ignore the pieces of plywood individually. This allows them to stitch together one complete object, and perceive it to be dynamic and natural in form.
I worked on this project over four months in 2018. I began by doing a few sketches to decide the form. Once I had something I liked, I created a digital model using Rhino and Grasshopper. This resulted in the, as yet, uncut form seen above. I then took this file and imported it into Slicer for Fusion 360, which allowed me to quickly adjust the way the model would be dissected. Small scale mockups of the different cut methods were made from laser-cut card and plywood to help decide on the final form.
The final design was then scaled up to 15mm Ply and then cut using a CNC router. Rough edges were sanded away with an orbital disk sander and shellac applied with a spray gun.
