CHAIR 3

Chairs are the most difficult furniture projects: they must be extraordinarily strong, but light enough to move easily, and they must adhere to strict ergonomic constraints. These chairs are made of plywood, formed with the special techniques of honeycombing and kerf cutting. Honeycombing, used in aircraft construction where strength-to-weight ratios are critical, achieves great strength with light sheet materials. The material used here, 1/4-inch (.63 cm) plywood, is used in its strongest direction—vertically—to make a horizontal seating surface. Kerf cutting weakens a material—in this case, 3/4-inch (1.9 cm) plywood—so it conforms to ergonomic requirements