Inspiration
El_Masnad embraces the floor as a living space and celebrates the Middle Eastern leisure culture.
Inspiration
El_Masnad embraces the floor as a living space and celebrates the Middle Eastern leisure culture.
Sana Alabdulwahed created El_Masnad as a design thesis to fulfill the requirements of Master of Science in Environmental Design, Furniture and Fixtures track, at Art Center College of Design, in Pasadena, Ca.
As an activist, she wanted to make a Social Impact, a Cultural Expression and meet a Local Aspiration for a contemporary Lifestyle.
Sitting Habits
Sitting Habits
Armrests
Armrests
The Lounge-Carpet Concept, El_Masnad: /ˈilə,mass,nad/ (n.):
An a Arabic word that is used traditionally to describe an armrest and it means everything you lean on. El_Masnad is a revolution through the eye of the designer. She is breaking the typical architype of sofas by bringing the seating lower to the ground and focusing on the posture of leaning on an armrest.
An armrest, traditionally, initiates a node in where the space is highly activated, so El_Masnad integrates multiple users doing different activities, facing different sides and gathered in the same point.
With El_Masnad Sitting behaviors emerges organically and intuitively in different situations of these multiple users of different ages perhaps, doing different activities. In addition, the users intuitively adapt new sitting position as time goes by.
Gallery
Gallery
details
details
The Making Idea and Process:
The upholstery roll up around the foam like the traditional way of rolling a carpet. Felt was used as contemporary alternative material for traditional wool carpets.
El_Masnad is not made of any hard material that may create an obstacle in the space. It rather made with soft materials where circulation can take place.
Created ideations through sketches and physical mock-ups in ¼ scale for structural elements and fabric design.
Prepared production drawings for fabrication. Including:
¼ scale model with dimension for metal tube frame.
Digital file for 5-axis hot wire milling for filling foam in Rhinoceros
Generated pattern design in Grasshopper, and produced files for CNC stitching.
Produced files for felt cut on CNC machine using Grasshopper, Pepakura, and autoCAD.
Rendered the design in five different suggested environments, using: Keyshot, Photoshop, 3Ds Max, Rhinoceros.
Recognition
Recognition
El_Masnad Lounge Carpet is a Silver A' Design Award Winner for Furniture, Decorative Items and Homeware Design Category in 2015.
1 A' Winners' Exhibition at Bologna Design Week, Italy. Dates: September 28 - October 1, 2016 https://competition.adesignaward.com/campaign-url.php?ID=89
2 A' Winners' Exhibition at Shenzhen International Industrial Design Fair, Shenzhen, China. Dates: 6-8 November, 2016. https://competition.adesignaward.com/campaign-url.php?ID=90
3 A' Winners' Exhibition at Cube Design Museum, Museumplein, Kerkrade, Netherlands. Dates: July 2 - August 4, 2016.
4 A' Winners' Exhibition at Espacio Ricardo Lorenzo, Gallery of the College of Architects of Cantabria, Calle De Aguayos num, Spain. Dates: April 7 - May 12, 2016.
5 A' Design Award designs at MOOD, Museum of Outstanding Design in Ex-Chiesa di San Francesco. Dates: 9-28 June, 2016. Como, Italy.
6 Graduate Show/ Industrial Night at Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, CA. Dates: 16-18 April, 2015
7 Decofair Exhibition, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Dates: 7-10 November, 2016.
http://www.artcenter.edu/gallery/detail/566b21884d9b6f02087bb439/5828?ret=%2Facademics%2Fgraduate-degrees%2Fenvironmental-design%2Fstudent-gallery.html%3Fp%3D1
8 Art Cafe, Ar-Rakah, Saudi Arabia 2017
9 Saudi Design Week, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia 2018
…and more
