It took "five months of struggle," but Pratt ID student Dashiell Schaeffer successfully designed and built this Curvesse Rocker out of a single sheet of plywood.

"The aim of this chair was to challenge the traditional concept of a rocking chair. I wanted this design to be sleek and elegant. It's meant to welcome any body type with its ergonomic curves on the seat and back. The material and overall design allows flexibility making the user ease into the chair."

"The objective of this piece was to create a piece of furniture out of one 4 feet by 8 feet sheet of plywood. To accomplish this I used two different types of poplar bendable plywoods. I steamed, bent, layered and laminated three barrel sheets of 1/8 inch material and three column sheets of 1/8 inch material to give it an overall thin, elegant 3/4 inch thickness."

"One challenge was to have the grain flowing along the bends and still make it strong enough to hold a person's weight. By layering and alternating the column and barrel sheets I gained strength and rigidity while keeping its flexibility. Half the layers had to be bent with steam and then set in position using molds I designed. To laminate everything together I used a vacuum bag. Some pieces cracked and it required a lot of experimentation to get the perfect rocking motion."

The Curvesse won a 2025 SIT Furniture Design Award, and also racked up an honorable mention in Rockler's "Try That Challenge," a social-media-based woodworking competition.

Schaeffer documented the entire project in a 45-minute video, below. (Fellow Pratt alumni: It's fun seeing the old shop again, but it sure wasn't that nice when we were there!)

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