New Balance Furniture - London 2012 Olympics

The shoe manufacturer approached Kingston University to create pieces of furniture for their Experience Centre in Millbank Tower for the London 2012 Olympics, celebrating 30 years of manufacture in the UK

My group, Isabella Hollentin and Sang Jun Park and I were inspired by New Balances 'newSKY' trainer, that uses material created from recycled PET plastic bottles

We collected waste sponge and foam from a visit to the upholstery factory 'Classics Furniture' and from the studio, that other groups were going to chuck out as they dismantled where furniture. This became our stock pile of material to base our wing-back chair design on

Heres some initial sketches

This is our Wing-Back I found on the streets of Kingston

The making of the Sponge Chair

The finished Sponge Chair

Next we started on a stool/foot rest for the chair

We thought it would be a nice idea to feature the modern technology of QR Codes and when visiters at New Balance Experience Centre were relaxing on the Sponge chair could scan a QR code, access our blog and learn about the chair they were sitting in and the project as a whole

Above is the QR code for the blog we ran alongside this project:

http://csi-operation-chair.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/csi-beginning.html

(Scan it with you smart device or click on the link to access our blog)

We thought why not combine the craft of weaving with the modern technology of QR codes

Using off-cuts from the New Balance factory in Flimby, UK, we cut strips that could be woven

Unfortunately the stool didn't scan but we think with more precision it would have worked

The finished Sponge Chair and QR Stool in the New Balance Experience Centre

Check out other works by my class on the New Balance website:

http://www.newbalance.co.uk/London-Experience-Center/london_experience_landing_page,en_GB,pg.html