Design Icons
Furniture Gallery
Redesign the Sol Koffler gallery into a space that showcases the history of iconic furniture pieces from 1900-2020.
Form Exploration
This project combines skills of graphic design and spatial design to create a gallery space that showcases unique furniture pieces while providing information about where, when, and how each chair was made. Since each chair is distinct in style and material, my goal was to design an exhibit structure that unifies the pieces while still allowing visitors to easily distinguish between them.
To avoid distracting from the intricate details of the furniture, the structure was designed using simple shapes. Exploring with circle and square panels led to a quarter-circle shape that could be easily repeated within the space.
To avoid distracting from the intricate details of the furniture, the structure was designed using simple shapes. Exploring with circle and square panels led to a quarter-circle shape that could be easily repeated within the space.
Possible Floor Plans
After landing on the quarter-circle shape, several different configuration possibilities were investigated within the context of the gallery. The main considerations when creating the floor plan were the path of travel, ensuring enough space between each chair, and maintaining overall cohesiveness within the gallery.
Graphic Development
The exhibit graphics take inspiration from geometric 2D patterns. The use of color and text placement helps to visually separate each furniture piece. The large text indicating the years of each chair’s creation guide the visitor in a chronological order through history.
About the Gallery
Due to the gallery’s small size, the furniture pieces are displayed through a combination of full-scale chairs and smaller prototype models. The smaller models are displayed on an upper shelf integrated into the information panels, while the full-scale chairs sit on a quarter-circle platform on the ground. The matching color of the platform and panels helps visitors connect each chair to its corresponding information text.
Physical Model
Materials: paper, foam core, wooden sticks, PET plastic