The Designosaur is a whimsical coffee table and speaker stand designed specifically for the common spaces in Stanford's Center for Design Research.
The building where the members of the Center for Design Research does not reflect the forward-thinking nature of its occupants. The building is old, poorly lit, and has carpet and walls in various states of drab. In short, it's not a building that inspires great thinking about human product interaction and design thinking research.
Therefore, my undergraduate research teammates and I decided to build the Designosaur as a functional piece of furniture to liven up the building.
The Designosaur has a wood core and a paper mache shell. A subwoofer fits inside his body, and the speakers rest on the stands.
Our group has weekly design meetings, called DesignX, talk about a person's project or a design thinking concept. We always serve food, and sometimes have music playing. We made the Designosaur specificalyl for DesignX meetings.
The coffee table on top of the Designosaur is a great place to put food, and the belly of the Designosaur is outfitted with speakers (the subwoofer sits below the coffee table and the external speakers rest on stands). For convenience, the Designosaur rests on four wheels so he can be moved around easily.
The Designosaur is used often for collaborative group meetings as a fun space to display food.
The inside of the Designosaur is made of 2 by 4s, plywood, and chicken wire.
We started with 2 by 4 blocks to create the internal structure of the Designosaur. We knew that he had to support a subwoofer that weighs well over 20 pounds, and so the internal structure had to be quite sturdy. We secured the plywood shelf (where the subwoofer sits) to the 2 by 4s using both screws and wood glue.
The outside shape of the Designosaur is created from chicken wire. We used chicken wire because it is light, inexpensive, and easy to bend and manuever into any shape.
We covered the chicken wire in paper mache to create the outer structure.
After creating the internal structure and wire frame for the outer structure, we started on the paper mache. We used paper mache because like the chicken wire, it is light, cheap, and allows for many possibilities. Our paper mache mixture was made of just flour and water. Four layers of paper mache later, we were ready to paint the Designosaur.
The varnished Designosaur
We finished the designosaur by painting it, varnishing it, and adding stands for the speakers. The coffee table on top of the Designosaur has small bite taken out of it where it fits into the neck; this design helps the coffee table stay put when the Designosaur is in use. To make the speakers as discreet as possible, the power cord fits through the tail of the Desinosaur so that an ugly black cord isn't in plain sight.
