Coffee-Stirrer Stool has been assembled from small wooden struts, each made out of four shortened coffee-stirrers that have been glued together. These struts have been arranged to form a diamond cubic truss, designed to resist compressive forces with a minimal amount of structural material.
Though the framework follows an identical geometry to that of the molecular structure of a carbon diamond, here the geometry has actually been informed by the tetrahedral structure of soap bubble clusters, which are constantly striving to optimise their form in terms of material usage. As a result each structural element in the diamond cubic truss follows a geometry of shortest paths, and they are each therefore inherently resistant to axial compression (the shorter the beam the more resistant it is to compression along its axis). Together these struts form a lightweight and high strength support structure.
The diamond cubic truss is an alteration of the geometry of soap bubbles clusters (where all edges in the cluster must bend slightly in order to achieve the optimum 109.5 degree angles at each vertex). In this framework each vertex is a rotated version of all neighboring vertices, allowing the struts to be straight while meeting at the required tetrahedral angles. (more info)
