The Chaise Lounge

When I was a freshman in college, my first major was Architecture. The university I attended first actually had a summer discovery program to expose you to what the curriculum would be like. We learned techniques and structural considerations, how to balance form and function, and the limitations of certain materials. We took field trips to well-known houses, museums, and businesses in the area to see architecture in action. And we had team competitions to build strong, beautiful, functional things.

The one I remember most was the final competition. We were given the task to build a chair entirely out of six 6 ft by 6 ft cardboard sheets. We could use glue to secure it, but the chair had to stand on its own. And it had to support a 300 pound man. As a bonus, we’d also be graded on aesthetics and comfort. AND the chairs would be featured on display in the entryway to the Architecture building for all of the arriving students to see and critique.

Most of the other teams built some sort of boxy, squarish chair sporting a back and various stages of armrests. Pretty basic stuff, but unfortunately not always strong enough to hold up a small pet much less a 300 pound man. Some passed the weight test only to be judged too ugly or too uncomfortable.

My team; however, had a guy perfectly suited to this profession. He had creativity and imagination, and he blended it with a firm knowledge of the limitations of every material. In a word, he had vision. He quickly concluded that corrugated cardboard is weakest when pressure is applied to the flat surface of the sides, causing the cardboard to bow and break. This is where many of the other teams failed in their designs. But if you apply that same pressure to the edge, then it will distribute it along the entire length of the cardboard.

Now, of course a single sheet is too thin to hold a large amount of weight for very long, but if you where to line up many sheets side-by-side, you could create a virtually unbreakable structure. By securing them together with small crosspieces spliced into grooves cut into the sheets, you could hold the whole structure together without adhesive of any kind.

But he didn’t stop there. He wanted something elegant and entirely different too. So, he proposed the idea of a chaise lounge, where someone could lay out on the chair and relax comfortably as well. The design gave us the ability to cut curves for the back and to support the legs, so the chair was both beautiful and ergonomically pleasing. And since each piece was a slice of the entire chair, we didn’t have the same issues that other teams had with trying to figure out how to secure the back onto the seat.

I have never been more proud of anything I’ve been a part of producing. The chair easily held the 300 pounds, and probably would have held much more. But it was also extremely comfortable and beautiful. We won the competition by a landslide, and it was in that moment that I realized that architecture wasn’t for me.

I can’t imagine ever being able to come up with something like that or to approach the problem the way that guy did. His mind was just wired that way. I came at it too analytically and straight on, like pretty much everyone else in the class. But he saw the world differently. I don’t know what became of him, but I imagine he’s somewhere designing amazing skyscrapers in exotic places. They’re probably sporting the latest in innovation and technology, all encased in a beautiful shell.

I don’t have regrets. I loved learning about that stuff, but it wasn’t the path for me. I quickly changed my major to Engineering after that. But that wasn’t meant to be either. And I eventually settled on computers. The one thing I didn’t want to study. The one thing I told myself I’d never major in, because I was so tired of them. It’s made for a financially stable life, but I wish I had pursued something else. Something that might have made me happier. I may not have regrets about architecture, I do have regrets about playing it safe.