Emily Greatorex

Tension & Trust

Tension & Trust consists of two experimental furniture prototypes that each employ tensegrity principles in their construction. Tensegrity is a means of construction that relies on tension and compression as it connects rigid components with tensile chords. The project explores how the construction of furniture affects the user’s visual perception of it; it takes the zany approach of using baby furniture to exaggerate the implication of a tensegrity-based design. In prototyping with tensegrity structures over the past year, Emily Greatorex found that designing with tensegrity is more of a puzzle than she realized. As a designer, she only chose the size and direction of the rigid components, but as a fabricator, she had to uncomfortably pull the parts into the one and only possible position where everything is cohesively rigid, and let that rigidity dictate the final form. Knowing that total rigidity is possible in only one correct orientation, where no members are loose or can be loosened, gives her the faith that these designs are stable. Her goal with this project is to create designs that convince the viewer of stability, and therefore the structural potential of tensegrity in functional furniture design. Emily’s work is in experimental design and fabrication that is inspired by the unordinary. She focuses primarily on prototyping unique and experimental furniture that can be validated within the larger context of furniture.