Nicole Kirk

SnapSeat

A tool-free stool that posts through a letterbox, then slots together by hand.

Queen Mary University of London · 2024

Brief

Product must fit the theme of ‘Office’ and fit through a slot of 175 × 35 mm (the average size of a UK/European domestic letterbox); the recipient must be able to assemble the artefact without any tools, glue or tape.

Through the letterbox

Keep scrolling to post it

OutsideInside600 mm

  1. Letter box dimensions – fold circular parts in half and lay legs flat.

  2. Hands pressing the flat-packed cardboard parts into a long, shallow box on a carpet.

    Flat packed – an incredibly large volume to fit in a shipping crate.

  3. Me lifting a long cardboard part out of a half-assembled model, its slotted fins standing up from the base.

    No tools, just hands to fit slits against slits.

  4. Render of the assembled stool: dark green slotted legs around round wooden shelves, with petal-shaped seat pieces on top.

    Target audience: temporary pop-up office spaces, children’s study stool.

Concept development

Pen sketches of four chairs: a classic office chair, a bar stool with a footrest, a sculptural stool of interlocking curves, and a folding chair.
From the ‘classic’ office chair to the ‘transforming’ chair.
Sketches of a folding chair with an interlocking leg structure, and a chair made of slotted flat panels.
Foldable, collapsible; slotted cutouts for flat-pack, tool-free assembly.
Pencil sketch of a desktop calendar showing Friday 12 November, folded from one sheet.
A desktop calendar, as an origami foldout.
Pencil sketch of a curved, slotted bookshelf that could double as steps.
Bookshelf for steps?
Pencil sketch of a frame of two interlocking panels held between four modular rods.
Two interlocking main frames, four modular rods.
Line drawings of the chosen stool: a round shelf with fold lines, one tall leg piece with support slots, and the assembled stool with a flower-shaped seat.
The stool: six leg pieces, round shelves folded on their score lines, and an ‘appealing flower design for seating’.
Render of the seat from above: six dark green petals overlapping in a spiral over a round wooden top.
The flower seat, from above.

Modelling

A brown cardboard model of the stool on a studio table, a laptop resting on its seat.
A hand placing the petal-shaped seat pieces on top of a brown cardboard model.
The finished stool in grey card, with grey and white petals on top, against a white wall.

Shelves slot into the legs, slits against slits.

The petals fold in half for the post, then open out as the seat.

At the desk

The grey stool beside an office desk with a monitor and a pinboard of photos.
Me sitting on the stool at a desk under a bookshelf, working on a laptop.

Chair Assembly Tutorial

QR code linking to the assembly tutorial video.Scan for the video

A short video showing how the stool goes together. The code on the printout links to it.

Watch it on YouTube