Rulers, rollers and candles become stools in one-tool challenge
Ten stainless steel rulers and a single nut and bolt can hold your weight. Paint rollers and plain white candles can too.
They are among 23 stools on show at The Lavery in South Kensington, London, built by design products master's students at the Royal College of Art in London. Each student was asked to make a stool using a single tool and minimal materials. The group show, called One Tool, One Stool, is presented as part of the London Design Festival, the city-wide annual design event Dezeen.
Mayank Patole's answer fans out in eight directions. He locked 10 stainless steel rulers together with one nut and bolt to form a spiky, splayed seat that reads more like a drawing than furniture.
Sue Ye went low and loose. Her low-slung seat is made from orange and yellow paint rollers, the kind used to paint walls, strung together with thin red rope. It sags just enough to suggest sitting.
Pil Gyu Jan worked with acoustic foam, the soft slabs normally used to muffle sound in studios. Chiselled into shape, the material becomes a dusty pink stool with chunky, squared-off edges.
Anisa Yelek built hers from light. Or rather, from what gives light. She clustered white candles together and used a heat gun, a hand tool that blows very hot air, to meld them into one bulbous form.
The brief sounds simple. It is not. One tool means every cut, join and finish has to come from the same action. Choose a drill and you live with holes. Choose rope and you have to tie, wrap or weave your way to something strong enough to sit on.
What makes this stand out is the restraint. There is nowhere to hide an extra bracket or a second material. Visitors can work backwards from each stool and guess the tool, which makes the show easy to enjoy even if you have never thought about furniture.
The college describes the long-running project as an exploration of tools and users, rules and how to get around them Royal College of Art. That spirit is clear in the finished pieces. Each one keeps its workings on show.
No special knowledge is needed. Walk up, look underneath, imagine sitting down. The labels do the rest.
