The Ghooch Chair | Toronto - 2002

Finalist Ryerson University Chair Competition 2002 & Winner Best of Year Award

Interior Design Magazine 2005

The Ghooch Chair was designed for a competition for the Ryerson University’s “Official Chair” in 2001 in Toronto, Canada. The chair was designed to symbolically represent Ryerson as a multicultural, multidisciplinary and multidimensional institution of higher learning. The choice of an exposed multilayered plywood edge is representative of this multilayered character. The concave shape of the seat recalls the shape of ancient Egyptian and African thrones, signifying the symbolic importance of the chair, while the rounded “m” shaped stainless-steel legs refer to Ryerson’s position as a dynamic institution of higher learning. The overall shape of the chair is an abstraction of the form of a Ram - the school mascot - also directly inspired by pre-historic drawings of the same animal on Persian pottery- hence the name of the chair: Ghooch!

The seat and back of Ghooch are constructed from laminating layers of a 1” thick plywood profile, cut on a CNC machine, assembled with dowels and glued together. The legs and the back-rest are constructed from ¼” thick stainless steel flat bars, formed on a press break and attached to the seat and back with metal screws. The overall dimensions of the chair are 21” x 23” x 28” with the seat height at 16.5”.

MEMENTO BOX |Off/Cut Competition | Toronto - 2005

Designers:  Johnson Chou + Parisa Manouchehri

Off/Cut was a competition by Azure Magazine to promote Canadian Design using a quintessential Canadian material: wood. The design brief called for the design of any object for the home, made from a single plank of Birch, Maple, Poplar or Fir, in typical off cut dimensions of 9”x2”x20”.

Off-cuts parallel those moments of one’s life that are often discarded, insignificant and indistinguishable within a continuum. Moments of time are imbued with meaning and significance only through ritual; birth, death, celebrations of achievement and rites of passage.

Our proposition is the notion that off-cuts can be perceived as totems, physical manifestations for moments of time. With their growth rings they not only represent the record of a life but also capture or embody it. For this reason off-cuts are the inspiration for a container that through its very materiality represents life/time and functions as a vessel for personal histories.

Our design is intended to give off-cuts new uses that amplify existing meanings – references to time/memory that will make them precious to the individual user: a Memento Box.

Design:

The Memento Box is simply a fir off-cut with its interior carved out to create recesses for storage. It is divided lengthwise into two, then stacked and hinged.

The design is composed to engender a sense of ritual, enticing the senses through touch, smell and sight to enhance memories. Commencing with a stainless steel magnetic lock that is removed to open the box which is, in turn, stored into a recess provided, the various hollowed-out compartments include: 4x6 photograph storage with a tilting lid to lay photos vertically against; storage for small objects of varying sizes; a vial for scents; a leather-lined platform for the viewing of objects; storage box for folded letters and scroll-like cylindrical recesses for letters-in-progress.

Created with dimensions to encase singular or multiple events, the box is envisioned not only to secure memories of the past but also to inspire in the documentation of the present and future.

Paridaiza Door Handle | Tehran - 2007

The design for this door handle, Paridaiza, (meaning an enclosed garden in ancient Iranian language) is based on various components of a Persian garden. Where, you might ask, commences the relation between a door handle and a Persian garden? Opening a glimpse into paradise (literally and etymologically) no imagery could be more appropriate. The word Paradise was coined after Paridaiza, the Old Persian word for an enclosed garden, which most closely resembled the experience of Eden on earth to the ancient people. The Persian garden, dating back thousands of years, is rich with formal qualities. This garden imagery has been the source of much of the architectural ornamentation and detailing of the building arts throughout the ages. A door handle that represents both conceptually, and figuratively, such a rich design lineage can find a remarkable place in the architecture that still exists in that ancient spirit - whether “traditional” or “modern” in its image. For the sake of this design, I have chosen three elements of this garden type: The fountain basin with its undulating walls as the rosette, the fountain shaft as the part of the handle that receives the spindle and the venerable ancient cypress tree as the handle’s lever itself. Together they complete the secret combination that is the door to paradise.