Familie Binder - Chair by Michael Holzer & Magdalena Reiter

by magdalenareiter

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Intro: Familie Binder - Chair by Michael Holzer & Magdalena Reiter

Familie Binder is a small family of furniture consisting of the stool 44/17, the chair 44/21 and the lounger 46/16. The seats are conceptualized for home assembly.
Once cut, polished and drilled, the wooden parts are simply put together using a cable tie.
Familie Binder was designed by Upper Austrian designers Clemens Bauder, Margit Greinocker, Michael Holzer, Magdalena Reiter, Klaus Michael Scheibl and Katja Seifert.
The furniture is designed according to open design guidelines. Therefore, the conceptual designs are publicly accessible and can be copied and further developed.
Familie Binder is happy to keep growing. If you design new offspring, please send us photos for addition to the family album to office@creativeregion.org.

a project by CREATIVE REGION Linz & Upper Austria
photos by Helga Traxler

STEP 1: Materials

STEP 2: Joints

STEP 3: Cutting Patterns

STEP 4: Drilling Plan

STEP 5: Assembly Instructions

STEP 6:

You can download a manual for all three furniture pieces here.

20 Comments

wchoy 11 years ago

A zip-tie bed/cot would be nice. For when a friend had too much to drink. Or when your in the dog house.

PS: DON'T DRINK AND DRIVE. AND MAKE LOVE NOT WAR.

Edgar 11 years ago

A great find.
Why only Furniture?
I can see a lot of Structures and Gizmos made that way...
Went to my Blog:
http://faz-voce-mesmo.blogspot.pt/2013/02/papercraft-incrivel-uma-mota-electrica.html

Johan Van Tonder 11 years ago

This project reminds me of a designer by the name of Victor Papaneck (hopefully spelled corect) that published a book on cardboard furniture and all sorts of material to use for Nomad living. I think that was the name of the book actually "Nomad Furniture". Should be nice if it is still around.
Johan Van Tonder

magdalenareiter 11 years ago

hi johan, maybe we've been unconsciously inspired as victor papanek is also from austria (as we are). ;)

cflett 11 years ago

I like your chair a olt and hope to make one soon.. with that said, i would offer that it could be stronger, if you substituted artificial sinew for the cable ties.this sinew is made of nylon and is customarily used in the lashing together of the wooden frameworks of skin on frame kayaks called baidarkas. in these, the sinew is laced back and forth and pulled very tight making an impressively strong joint. just do a little research into the making of these kayaks and you will see what i mean.

magdalenareiter 11 years ago

thanks for the advice! i didn't know artificial sinews before but they look like i should give them a try!

btarry 11 years ago

I guess you are thinking outside the box or something. Just not sure what the zip tie obsession is about. Have a grudge against screw manufacturers, and are boycotting them? If you have the tools and skills to cut wood at these angles and drill holes, how hard is it to drive in a few screws and make this a lot firmer? I just don't get the purpose of this whole instructable... ???

magdalenareiter 11 years ago

hi btarry,
we do like screws! the original purpose of the furniture was to assemble it together with people that usually do not have the possibilities to build stuff - maybe because they do not have the tools or a workshop, or simply because nobody ever taught them.
we had only limited time for the workshops, so we prepared kits (the parts were already cut, drilled and ground). the people attending the workshop were painting the parts and assembling it (sometimes in a modified way, but usually the way we showed them).
we have the impression, that usually people that do not have a lot of experience with building have also problems to understand the joints well - that's why we chose not to use screws, because they make the process more "intransparent", but something different they had to think about.
the files we share are the original ones, but of course, if somebody does not like the look of the zip ties or thinks its not stable enough (it is though, if you use good quality zip ties), they can use screws as well. no prob. :)

welderhero 11 years ago

Needed some flush cutter cutters to finish it. Mine are blue point from the truck. They cut the cable tie to minimum without leaving a sharp burr. Nice chair.
This idea has a lot of applications.

Elac. 11 years ago

Very cool project, thanks for sharing.
If you plan on using the furniture outdoors or indoors with exposure to direct sunlight be careful as the sun degrades normal zipties. I would advise using UV resistant zipties in those cases.

Duplo for Daddies 11 years ago

Neat idea. A lot of the bamboo scaffolding is actually bound together with 2+ feet long cable ties (or something like it) now. The last couple of days I've been watching a team put up several decorative walls (20 feet tall) and a whole stage (approx. 20 x 20 x 20 feet), using only bamboo and cable ties as the main frame for it all. (I'm in Hong Kong at the moment)

randofo 11 years ago

Nice projects. A while back I had some ideas for zip tied furniture. For stronger joints, you can buy metal zip ties.

shannonlove 11 years ago

Metal zip ties would be stronger but not significantly so.

If you look at the force vectors in the design you can readily see that the major forces, those normal to gravity and caused by the weight of the chair and the person sitting in it, are born directly by wood to wood contact. The zip ties serve merely to control lateral movement and keep the wood aligned.

Further, the design prevents any single zip tie from catching all the force of any given lateral displacement. Instead any lateral force will be caught by a minimum of four zip ties and really it looks like eight or more.

Not to shabby. It might be inspired by traditional Asian bamboo design in which all kinds of lightweight structures are made of bamboo rods held together by joint wraps of thin bamboo strips. Those structures look to flimsy to hold any weight or resist any lateral displacement but you can park a tank on some of them.

Arghus 11 years ago

easy yet stunning

vincent7520 11 years ago

Love it !…
Not so much the cable ties, but the simplicity of the design and it's adaptability to various wood qualities and / or materials.
A very effective way to have cheap extra chairs / seats when they're needed for parties, long week end with family and friends, etc… 
Very inspiring.
Thank you !…

sunshiine 11 years ago

Very artistic and cool! Thanks for sharing your hard work and have a splendorous day!
Sunshiine

magdalenareiter 11 years ago

@randofo yes, exactly. we experienced that you need really good quality of plastic zip ties, but if you use those and join the pieces in two different axes the joint will be quite stable.