Every year the Toronto Design Offsite Festival (now called DesignTO) has a call for designers to showcase some work at a grand exhibition. Late last year, the call was for mixed-use furniture. I submitted a design for it and was not picked - to be fair, it wasn't a very good one. But that process got me thinking about mixed-use furniture. People have always looked for products that can do multiple things or do things better. 

Now, I've never owned furniture and prefer to rent in all my apartments. This has been mostly practical: I think it makes moving easier (and cheaper) when you don't have to move furniture. I've moved 5 times in the last 5 years, so it definitely helps.

One of the problems with that, is that I have no constant place to store things such as my books. Also, some apartments have come with no working space - like my current one, where my Desktop is set up on my dining table. On going through Pinterest (my fave boards are here and here), I had an idea to combine a seat with a small bookshelf.

Ideation

I ran through a number of ideas, how could I build this?

I eventually settled on a concept with a curvature, as a way to manage loading better. I could not decide on the right way to store the books initially, but decided to use the space under the sear for this.

Design

As an Onshape buff, I designed Nọrọ using the software.

One thing I added here is two variables: thickness of the material and fit. 

This helps if I have to remake the design using another piece of wood different from the one I had thought about it with - I can just go to the right panel and change the variable and the whole model will regenerate immediately. Yay for parametric design.

Also, since I would be cutting with a mill, had to put in some dog bones.

Making

I cut Nọrọ on MDF (Medium Density Fibreboard) using a CNC Mill.

Production

I got a lot of great feedback over the years about the stool, and in January 2023, I decided to launch it on Kickstarter to gauge interest.

The production stool is made out of birch plywood and includes a new base plate for the bottom compartment.

The campaign was live until February 8, 2023 and raised about $20K CAD.

Delivery & Purchase

At the moment, I am producing and delivering to stool to Kickstarter backers.

To purchase one for yourself, you can pre-order one in the store.