I can also highly recommend Enzio Mari's Autoprogettazione furniture. Although slightly more involved in construction, all you need is standard planks, hand saw, a hammer and some nails. The instruction PDF can be found online (chairs in the latter half):
Two of the core ideas are that the majority of the work can be undertaken by a single person with basic carpentry skills, using readily-available materials in standard sizes so there is minimal cutting and waste.
Having built a couple of smaller structures, I don't see why these can't be done today. Ignoring the current trend of building for curb appeal instead of practicality, you can build a house using standard size materials (8/10/12/16 foot). Even studs come in 92 5/8" to accomodate for top/bottom plates in 8 foot walls.
I'm always intrigued by the Segal method, but it's so closely tied to the sizes of construction materials available at the time and I can't help wondering if anything has changed since.
Just looking through that PDF, unlike the chair in the blog, some of that furniture is not as robust. Pages 46 & 47 the load rests on the corner of the wood, and pages 46, 47 & 52 add almost all load onto the screws.
The chair in the blog benefits from essentially having all load bearing done by the wood, any screws or nails would be superficial only. We have several good hard wood chairs here with dove tail joints and spring based cushions - and they are excellent.
The chair in the blog is not robust. It is simple, but not robust. It contains a hinge with an extreem amount of force placed on a small area of wood. It will deform very quickly, changing the angle of the recline. Similarly, the sharp points in contact with the ground will wear/weather quickly, putting it out of level. Rustic and utilitarian, but not meant to last. Imho.
I think you should check your own knowledge before double-guessing Enzo Mari - a designer who did the work and had extensive knowledge of form and materials spanning decades.
This is not an ""argument from authority" but "Chesterton's Fence".
Very nice! thanks for that. I really like basic agricultural do it yourself furniture. We should reclaim our furniture and be less dependent on IKEA et al. I'm defo going to try the adjustable table at the top of the pdf, thats a work of art.
Ironically, companies like Ikea have started selling products aimed at people making their own furniture; the "outdoor bench made from pallets" is pretty popular, and ikea & co sell cushions just for those.
I never understood those tbh, used pallets are splintery. I wouldn't be surprised if you can buy pallets specifically made for use in upcycle projects.
fake edit after a quick search: yup, you can buy readymade pallet benches or benches "inspired by" pallet projects.
What is interesting also in Enzo Mari's concept is that there is no instructions, you have to figure out the best order of operations and how to offset some planks with others.
And and and last but not least, the great Christopher Schwarz and team at Last Art Press just got out a whole video serie and book on how to make a highly respectable chair design from very basic materials and tools:
I had never seen this type of chair before moving to Senegal as an expat. For several months, I didn’t try them because I assumed they must be incredibly uncomfortable. To be honest, most are made from thinner wood (people here are really poor!), so they didn’t look very sturdy either.
But a few weeks ago, I visited a local woodworker and ordered one of these chairs. I had to let go of all my previous prejudices - this type of chair is surprisingly comfortable and stable. And it's even useful for certain "other" activities :-D
Even though they are African in origin (perhaps as birthing chairs), a lot of people know these as 'viking chairs' or sometimes as 'bog chairs' and you see them at SCA events and various sorts of old timey reenactment type gatherings, often decorated with celtic knots and such motifs.
Crazy to see them warrant a posting here, I had assumed most people had seen them before.
This chair is made from pressure treated wood. Technically speaking, it is safe to sit on, but personally I'd like to avoid those chemicals against my skin if I could. Regular lumber probably would be preferable, especially when it would take $10 and 20 minutes to replace it after 5 years when it has rotted (or you could spring for redwood or cedar for an extra $10 and double or triple the life of your chair).
Most pressure treated lumber eschews the old arsenic method. Most only have copper and an anti fungal (Tebuconazole) in it. Perfectly safe for an outdoor chair.
The problem with using modern pressure treated wood for outdoor furniture is less any cancer risks like with the old CCA treatments, and more that it's just a bad choice for a bunch of different reasons.
Modern copper-based treatments--e.g. ACQ or CA--still cause skin and eye irritation. If you try to sand it so that people sitting in your new chair don't get a nasty splinter somewhere best avoided, you can compromise the effectiveness of the treatment (even when the treatment gets full penetration, it's still most effective on the outer layers you're now sanding away). Plus, while the dust you create when working with it might not include arsenic, it's still nasty to breathe in and can cause respiratory problems. Staining P/T wood can be a whole ordeal in itself, and because interact much more closely with furniture than say a deck, any imperfections will be more noticeable.
Even then, it's not like P/T furniture isn't going to require ongoing maintenance in the future. At which point, you're better off with something like cedar or white oak. Hell, with a decent outdoor grade finish and proper care, even untreated pine is going to last for years without rotting away underneath you.
We used to treat wood with oil (literally from kitchen oil to motor oil). Apparently the Japanese burn theirs to treat it [1]. I don't think you have to leave it to rot out.
Keep in mind Yakisugi ("shou sugi ban" is a Western misinterpretation circa ~1995) is traditionally performed on wood which is already weather resistant, particularly Japanese Cedar ("sugi" is cryptomeria japonica, a type of cypress endemic to Japan). Even then they still treat it with oil regularly to improve its longevity. So I wouldn't char some white pine and stick it outside and expect it to last.
Back in the olden days, pressure-treated wood contained compounds of arsenic and chromium. This made it pretty terrible to cut, sand, burn, etc.
The warnings persist in part because older wood still has that problem, so "reclaimed wood" projects can be risky. That said, since mid-2000s, wood in the US and the EU is treated primarily with much safer copper compounds. Copper isn't hugely toxic to humans at the levels you're likely to be exposed to from wood.
To be fair, the treatment often also includes an organic fungicide (the "azole" part in "copper azole"), which is probably not understood as well as copper.
I've done ten's of carving by gluing thin layers in a mold to create carved plywood. Those are extra strong but required to use quite a lot of glue and get the right thickness wood veneers. Would love to learn the solid board way.
edit: fined tuned my English today: seems carving means sculpting and not bending.
In my chairs I just sculpt the back out of eight quarter with an angle grinder. More production focused wood workers are using multi-axis routers/cncs.
The english term for what you are referring to in bent lamination which is done by taking a piece of wood, slicing it to sections with a thin kerf blade, soaking in water, and then clamping to a form and gluing back together. This is how Russ Filbeck creates his classic presidential rocker.
With pleasing circularity, the original post for this discussion, is referenced on the instructables page as one of the 17 people confirmed to have made it.
The ultralight community never ceases to amaze me.
I always thought it was all about travel as light as possible
But I think it's more about travel with as many things as possible - the lightness of the objects is just an emergent requirement in order to not break your back.
I've done my fair share of hiking, longest being a 90km 5-day hike in the Namibian desert, with no facilities save for a river. Weight was a big factor, because you needed to pack food for at least 8 days to be safe and there is nowhere to get food once you start the hike. What equipment you pack and the weight of said equipment weight had to be kept at a minimum.
Having said that...
A chair or other seating arrangement was by a large margin the lowest priority item on my list. There is one giant chair under our feet the whole time: the ground. And if that is not suitable, finding a stump or a rock or whatever to sit on is really not that hard and it's infinitely more environmentally friendly.
I agree, but would be even worse as a TikTok video.
Shorts are absolutely terrible as product reviews. The point of a product review is to explore different aspects and use cases, otherwise it is an ad. It doesn't mean that long videos can't be ads, but short videos can't be anything but ads (if positive).
Shorts have a place, TikTok is great for silly dance moves, magic tricks, or people working really fast. You can even have short form educative content, though it usually doesn't go further than random trivia. But product reviews just don't work, unless they are ads. And in fact, ads don't even work that well as people tend to forget about them quickly.
Not sure about TikTok, but in this video and YouTube in general, you can just directly go to where most people go, and this way (I'm always a bit amazed that this actually works) you can generally see the actually important points of the video.
That carbon fiber seat is cool. Could be made to integrate right into the back of a backpack (like the rigid frame), to help the backpack stay rigid during use, so it's kind of dual purpose.
In the book she starts with the basics and works up to assembly including woven seats. These are beautiful lightweight chairs. Even if you don't build the chair, it's a great lesson in wooworking.
Thanks for reminding me that I haven't been to the Lost Art Press site in a while. I have a few of their books; they are fantastic. If you are interested in quality woodworking tools and high-quality woodworking books (both in terms of content as well as binding and paper), check them out.
I hadn't seen their "Build a Chair from Bullshit" book before. I've always been a little intimidated at the thought of building a chair, but this one looks like it's easy to build and has nice lines. Definitely more involved than the OP's chair, but it still looks still approachable with basic tools and skills.
Edit: As mentioned in dlbucci's comment below, I forgot to mention that it's available for free as a downloadable PDF book as well as for purchase as high quality bound book on their site. If you have any interest in an easy to build chair with an attractive design, it's worth a look.
It starts out not much more complicated than this and builds to a surprising array of furniture projects with a very small number of techniques. Although the actual materials are a bit annoying: it leans heavily on cut nails and specifically not the more easy to buy wire nails you usually see in DIY shops.
But also, the book is a physically gorgeous artefact in its own right. The illustrations are delicious.
Readit News
https://syllabus.pirate.care/library/Enzo%20Mari/Autoprogett...
Two of the core ideas are that the majority of the work can be undertaken by a single person with basic carpentry skills, using readily-available materials in standard sizes so there is minimal cutting and waste.
The chair in the blog benefits from essentially having all load bearing done by the wood, any screws or nails would be superficial only. We have several good hard wood chairs here with dove tail joints and spring based cushions - and they are excellent.
This is not an ""argument from authority" but "Chesterton's Fence".
I never understood those tbh, used pallets are splintery. I wouldn't be surprised if you can buy pallets specifically made for use in upcycle projects.
fake edit after a quick search: yup, you can buy readymade pallet benches or benches "inspired by" pallet projects.
https://www.online-pallets.nl/products/pallet-bank-2-hoog-me...
https://www.karwei.nl/assortiment/wakefield-palletbank-lina-...
For those of you who start from really zero and have no idea how to start, here is a step-by-step for a couple of pieces: https://lieu-subjectif.com/documents/caue-22-rietveld-mari.p...
If really you want a "cheat sheet", there's whole book to help: https://filmandfurniture.com/product/hammer-nail-making-and-...
But try not to use it too much, because it really defeats the purpose of Mari, which it is to get people to "think with their hands".
Digging through the legacy and follow-ups of Autoprogettazione is also interesting:
https://lieu-subjectif.com/documents/autoprogettazione-revis...
https://greg.org/archive/mari-x-ikea.pdf
The "Harz IV" (Germany's working poors) furniture project: https://www.guggenheim.org/articles/lablog/hartz-iv-mobel-it...
Simple Japanese Furniture by Monomono / KAK Design Group: https://woodworkersinstitute.com/simple-japanese-furniture-c...
https://www.core77.com/posts/42562/Nomadic-Furniture-DIY-Des...
And and and last but not least, the great Christopher Schwarz and team at Last Art Press just got out a whole video serie and book on how to make a highly respectable chair design from very basic materials and tools:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pWLHAJr5zI
Note also that Lost Art Press makes their books free after some time after first publication, and have a very interesting blog:
https://blog.lostartpress.com/2024/12/27/download-ingenious-...
https://blog.lostartpress.com/
And nothing stops you to paint them or engrave them.
Is a wooden box "brutalist" too? It is a box. It is square. Is the the same as a square windowless concrete building?
But a few weeks ago, I visited a local woodworker and ordered one of these chairs. I had to let go of all my previous prejudices - this type of chair is surprisingly comfortable and stable. And it's even useful for certain "other" activities :-D
Crazy to see them warrant a posting here, I had assumed most people had seen them before.
They’re talking about the chair being useful during sex.
Modern copper-based treatments--e.g. ACQ or CA--still cause skin and eye irritation. If you try to sand it so that people sitting in your new chair don't get a nasty splinter somewhere best avoided, you can compromise the effectiveness of the treatment (even when the treatment gets full penetration, it's still most effective on the outer layers you're now sanding away). Plus, while the dust you create when working with it might not include arsenic, it's still nasty to breathe in and can cause respiratory problems. Staining P/T wood can be a whole ordeal in itself, and because interact much more closely with furniture than say a deck, any imperfections will be more noticeable.
Even then, it's not like P/T furniture isn't going to require ongoing maintenance in the future. At which point, you're better off with something like cedar or white oak. Hell, with a decent outdoor grade finish and proper care, even untreated pine is going to last for years without rotting away underneath you.
[1] https://www.instructables.com/How-to-Burn-Stain-Wood-Aka-Sho...
You can also add a sealant on top like polyutherane if you want it to last even longer at the cost of imparting a different texture.
The warnings persist in part because older wood still has that problem, so "reclaimed wood" projects can be risky. That said, since mid-2000s, wood in the US and the EU is treated primarily with much safer copper compounds. Copper isn't hugely toxic to humans at the levels you're likely to be exposed to from wood.
To be fair, the treatment often also includes an organic fungicide (the "azole" part in "copper azole"), which is probably not understood as well as copper.
Wood is typically treated with nasty chemicals. For example, formaldehyde is extensively used in these applications, and it's linked with cancer.
https://www.cancer.org/cancer/risk-prevention/chemicals/form...
It gets even better with wood carving (rather than building out of straight planks):
https://www.1stdibs.com/furniture/seating/chairs/african-sol...
I've done ten's of carving by gluing thin layers in a mold to create carved plywood. Those are extra strong but required to use quite a lot of glue and get the right thickness wood veneers. Would love to learn the solid board way.
edit: fined tuned my English today: seems carving means sculpting and not bending.
[1] https://engineeringlearn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Adze...
[2] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/dwAu6RIQURo
The english term for what you are referring to in bent lamination which is done by taking a piece of wood, slicing it to sections with a thin kerf blade, soaking in water, and then clamping to a form and gluing back together. This is how Russ Filbeck creates his classic presidential rocker.
Deleted Comment
https://youtu.be/-GEwwMbqU2o
I always thought it was all about travel as light as possible
But I think it's more about travel with as many things as possible - the lightness of the objects is just an emergent requirement in order to not break your back.
I've done my fair share of hiking, longest being a 90km 5-day hike in the Namibian desert, with no facilities save for a river. Weight was a big factor, because you needed to pack food for at least 8 days to be safe and there is nowhere to get food once you start the hike. What equipment you pack and the weight of said equipment weight had to be kept at a minimum.
Having said that...
A chair or other seating arrangement was by a large margin the lowest priority item on my list. There is one giant chair under our feet the whole time: the ground. And if that is not suitable, finding a stump or a rock or whatever to sit on is really not that hard and it's infinitely more environmentally friendly.
The ultralight community doesn't typically touch this stuff. This is sold to traditional backpackers that are drawn to the allure of ultralight.
Dead Comment
https://rovagear.com/products/rova-chair
(Not an endorsement. Just if you’re curious.)
I feel like people have just gotten so used to 10-second videos, and anything longer now feels like an eternity.
I really hope people don’t stop making longer form videos in favor of TikTok-sized videos.
Shorts are absolutely terrible as product reviews. The point of a product review is to explore different aspects and use cases, otherwise it is an ad. It doesn't mean that long videos can't be ads, but short videos can't be anything but ads (if positive).
Shorts have a place, TikTok is great for silly dance moves, magic tricks, or people working really fast. You can even have short form educative content, though it usually doesn't go further than random trivia. But product reviews just don't work, unless they are ads. And in fact, ads don't even work that well as people tend to forget about them quickly.
https://lostartpress.com/products/make-a-chair-from-a-tree
In the book she starts with the basics and works up to assembly including woven seats. These are beautiful lightweight chairs. Even if you don't build the chair, it's a great lesson in wooworking.
I hadn't seen their "Build a Chair from Bullshit" book before. I've always been a little intimidated at the thought of building a chair, but this one looks like it's easy to build and has nice lines. Definitely more involved than the OP's chair, but it still looks still approachable with basic tools and skills.
https://blog.lostartpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/BAC...
Edit: As mentioned in dlbucci's comment below, I forgot to mention that it's available for free as a downloadable PDF book as well as for purchase as high quality bound book on their site. If you have any interest in an easy to build chair with an attractive design, it's worth a look.
It starts out not much more complicated than this and builds to a surprising array of furniture projects with a very small number of techniques. Although the actual materials are a bit annoying: it leans heavily on cut nails and specifically not the more easy to buy wire nails you usually see in DIY shops.
But also, the book is a physically gorgeous artefact in its own right. The illustrations are delicious.