Tendo by Louis Rösner

Furniture / Design HighTech

Material bending based on cuts and tension.

The “Tendo”-stool (lat.: tightening) is a piece of furniture that can be assembled quickly, easily, and neatly. The stool consists of only three elements and no further aids are required for assembling. The stool gains its stability from an integrated tension belt. The belt connects a centrally placed spar with the stool legs and its seat. Only when the belt is tensioned does the piece of furniture bend from a two-dimensional into a three-dimensional shape. This conversion is enabled by carefully thought-out cuts in the wood, which at the same time ensure that the seat surface flexibly adapts to the person sitting. This promotes dynamic sitting, relieves the back when sitting and prevents consequential damage caused by monotonous stress on the spine. The shape presented is the result of an extensive series of tests in which various designs were produced as models with the “Speedy100R” laser cutter from “trotec” and then compared with regard to stability, flexibility, and appearance. The lashing strap is highlighted by the choice of bright colours that are repeated on the two edges of the stool. The aim was to keep the work as straightforward as possible. That is why all wood components should be manufactured with just one machine. Multiplex or plywood was chosen as material. This is stable, has good dimensional stability, and can be easily processed with the laser. The technical drawings were created with Vectorworks and converted into processing files so that the panels could be cut with the MTL laser system from "rofin". In order to minimize waste, the components of a stool were produced from just one sheet.