The following paper stool is the result of extensive expirementation in the form of multiple iterations. The prompt of this project which was completed during my freshman fall semester of spatial dynamics was to create a paper stool out of bristol board that could support your own weight and hold somebody six inches off of the ground. It was initially very difficult to organize paper forms to support the weight of my body, but I found strong shapes and used them to come up with a cohesive and unified design.
Through both expirenentation and research I found vertical tubes and hexagons to be very effective shapes in supporting weight. I also realized that hexagons could easily be divided into triangles and that these shapes could coexist to compliment their respective structural integrities. The following is a result of expirementation with the various other structural paper forms and multiple other iterations.
These are two rememnants of the first prototype I began working on. I expiremented with triangular forms and bracing the inside of vertical tubes with triangular organizations of paper, but I found that there was difficulty in how to distribute weight evenly along the surfaces of the supporting pillars. As a result, the second iteration invlolved a different organization of papers along its surface
The second prototype used a box like structure in the hopes of distributing weight more evenly along the exterior of the platform. The design once again utilizes vertical tubes and triangular bracing. Like the first expirement, it worked, but there was extenive creasing along the exterior by the time I had finished testing the platform. For this reason, I developed the third iteration of the platform which focused on the strength of both of these designs.
The third iteration combined the triangular bracing of the second iteration with the vertical tubes of the first iteration along with a more hexagonal interior shell to exist within the platform's supporting structure.
Final images of the paper stool design, created with bristol board and assembled using various forms of paper glue and interlocking planes.
