Chaise Locus

Discipline : Product

Categories : Furniture / Residential Furniture : Gold certification

Locus Chair

Approach

Two principles guided the design and creation of the Locus chair: its relationship with the ground and the reduction of its environmental impact.

By its very nature, a chair maintains a special relationship with the ground on which it rests. Instead of starting the design with the seat or the backrest, I chose to make contact with the ground the starting point of the project. The arch shape imposed itself as a way to express this relationship: it describes a clear path, originating from and returning to the ground.

The structure of the Locus chair is composed of four interconnected arches at ground level, each following a distinct trajectory and function. Two arches form the arms, while the other two make up the backrest. Three crossbars anchor themselves to these arches to form the seat, much like the deck of a bridge. The interweaving of the arches, especially at their base, also guided the design. The golden ratio and the logarithmic spiral helped define their meeting points, as two trunks sharing the same root system.

The Locus chair is made from sugar maple sourced from a local cut. These maples, often from sugar bushes, are sometimes overlooked by the timber industry due to tapping holes related to maple syrup production, which limit the usable length of the boards. However, the construction of a chair, composed of relatively short pieces, allows this underutilized resource to be valorized. The pieces are assembled using Festool Dominos in beech, a system that transposes the traditional principle of tenon and mortise into more complex configurations while maintaining a completely wooden assembly. The chair’s very shape also contributes to its strength: the angled arch of the upper backrest acts as a reinforcing diagonal and contributes to the overall stability.

Locus is thus designed as a piece of furniture that is both sculptural, structural, and durable, where form arises directly from the relationship between the body, the material, and the ground.

The project in images