Cross chair: Exploration on linoleum's application in furniture design

Made of natural ingredients, linoleum is an environmentally sustainable surfacing material with unique aesthetic and tactile properties. Although it has been applied in furniture design since the 1930s, it’s mostly applied on a flat surface such as the table top. There is very rare exploration into the techniques and various possibilities of linoleum in furniture design. The thesis aims to further explore the material structure of linoleum and its application in furniture design. The literature review includes research into linoleum’s manufacture, characteristics and its application in furniture design. The thesis project mainly uses hands-on experimenting, iterative testing and prototype making methods. During the experiment process, different carrier materials and various techniques are used. As wood and metal are two of the materials mostly used in furniture design, they are used as the primary carrier materials of linoleum in most of the tests. The exploration aims to create various standard elements with a large variety of combination possibilities that could be applied in different furniture construction. The semi-tube material structure laminated by linoleum and veneers is found to be both lightweight and strong in construction, which resembles the bamboo material structure. Developed further from the semi-tube material structure, cross structure is even more stable so it’s chosen to be the main structure of easy chairs. Named after CROSS CHAIR for the cross structure of semi-tubes, two chair prototypes made are stable in structure and stylish in form. This practice-led research illustrates linoleum’s unseen possibilities in furniture design.