The Chair Project

Four Classics

Prototypes of four AI-generated chairs; Models (Scale 1:8)
Prototypes of four AI-generated chairs (Scale 1:8)

The Chair Project is a series of four chairs co-designed by AI and human designers. The project reverses the roles of human and machine in the design process and industrial production. It explores co-creativity between humans and AI, taking the chair — the archetype of a designed object — as an example.
By positioning machine and human in reverse of their usual roles (The machine creates, the human produces), the work challenges creativity as an exclusively-human (or at least non-machine) trait, calling into question the modernist divide between man and machine — not as an insult, but as an opportunity.

The Chair Project is a collaboration between Philipp Schmitt, Steffen Weiss, and two neural networks.

Process

From Generated Chair to Prototype: Intim Chair
From Generated Chair to Prototype: The Leaner
From Generated Chair to Prototype: Egon Chair
From Generated Chair to Prototype: The Dane
A selection of the training data used to train the neural network
A selection of the training data used to train the neural network
A selection of 16 AI-generated chairs
A selection of AI-generated chairs
Intim Chair, Prototype (Scale 1:8), balsa, aluminum mesh The Leaner, Prototype (Scale 1:8), brass base, aluminium mesh Egon Chair, Prototype (Scale 1:8), brass base, molded plywood The Dane, Prototype (Scale 1:8), balsa Prototypes of four AI-generated chairs (Scale 1:8)

Update: Through a commission by the MAK Vienna for the exhibition Uncanny Values: Artificial Intelligence and You, The Chair Project is now complete, in full-scale. Prototype design and manufacturing by Mikkel Mikkelsen of Nordic Refined and Danish artisans. Photos below:

The Chair Project (Four Classics) at Uncanny Values, MAK Vienna The Chair Project (Four Classics) at Uncanny Values, MAK Vienna The Chair Project (Four Classics) at Uncanny Values, MAK Vienna The Chair Project (Four Classics) at Uncanny Values, MAK Vienna The Chair Project (Four Classics) at Uncanny Values, MAK Vienna The Chair Project (Four Classics) at Uncanny Values, MAK Vienna