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Gas injection technology enables treelike design
Product description: A sturdy yet lightweight chair for both indoor and outdoor use, featuring unique cutout sections that give the chair a woven, treelike design. Molded parts: Seat shell and two front legs in one step, and two rear legs in a second step
Kate Dixon
April 21, 2009
2 Min Read
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Product description: A sturdy yet lightweight chair for both indoor and outdoor use, featuring unique cutout sections that give the chair a woven, treelike design.Molded parts: Seat shell and two front legs in one step, and two rear legs in a second step
OEM/Designer: Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec for Vitra (Weil am Rhein, Switzerland)
Materials: Reinforced nylon 6/6 (BASF Miramid B3EG3 GIT)
Design details: Inspired by early 20th century tree pruning and shaping in North America, designers Ronan and Erwan Boroullec designed the Vegetal chair, which debuted at the end of 2008 and was on display at the furniture fair in Milan, Italy from April 22-27. In order to stand up to both indoor and outdoor use, a very sturdy plastic was required, which would also need to meet the requirements for a special gas injection technology (GIT) manufacturing process. The designers selected Miramid B3EG3 GIT, a reinforced polyamide specially optimized for GIT that could easily be dyed in the desired earth colors. Miramid is exclusively produced and sold by BASF subsidiary Leuna GmbH (Leuna, Germany) and meets the high surface quality requirements needed for GIT, even in special colorations. After the traditional injection molding process, compressed air blasts out certain portions of the chair structures that are not yet hardened. This keeps the four legs and part of the seat shell stable, even though they are hollow, and results in a chair that weighs slightly more than 12 lb (5.5 kg). Made of just three components, the two front legs and seat shell are formed in a single processing step, with the two rear legs made in a second step. The chair will be available in mid-2009 in six colors.
BASF aims to help industrial designers turn ideas into reality quickly by utilizing the company’s designfabrik service platform, providing applications technology and material selection advice, along with approximately 20,000 color samples. —[email protected]
More info: www.basf.com
www.designfabrik.basf.com
www.basf-leuna.de/en/
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