It’s called the ‘pulse’
coat rail and the aesthetical inspiration behind it came from the digital readout of heart rate monitors and medical devices, with a continuous line spiking
up and down the screen to register heart rate etc. I had the idea in my
sketchbook for a while and finally decided to develop it into something
workable. I hadn’t worked with metal before so I spent quite a bit of time
researching into what I wanted the metal to do and how I was going to do that. And
it soon became clear from numerous mock-ups that I couldn’t shape the metal to
the aesthetic/functional requirement I wanted, so I hunted down a blacksmith. Luckily
I found one two minutes’ drive away from my home and he was happy to shape a
piece of a metal to the design I had drawn up.
The most important
and taxing part of the project was working out the profile of the rail and how it
would function and accommodate coats, hats, bags, clothes etc. and anything
else that might be stored in a hall way or with peoples garments. The reason the
rail is designed like this is by the way I observed people using coat rails and
stands. People seem to just throw their coats on hooks and stuff scarves,
gloves into pockets and hook bags on top of the coats they have just hung up. People
don’t seem to use the loops provided in the back of jackets anymore, and just
seem to throw/push their garments onto the stands/hooks and carry on with their
day. I observed this in my own home, cafes, and public places etc. So I wanted
a design of coat rail that accommodated this ‘bunching of clothes’ and ‘hang it
up and forget about it’ mentality. Also I wanted it to accommodate other items like
bags, gloves, even letters/papers. So people could quickly discard their over
garments without having to physically think about hanging something up, the
garment would just drape onto the rail effortlessly. And that’s where the loops,
horizontal sections and continuous line of the design come into play. The user
determines how to use the coat rail; they can loop, thread or stuff their
belongings into and around the metal profile. Hang bangs, stuff letters or
newspapers into the rail. And subsequently from my trials, hang a large volume
of items from this design, more than conventional coat racks/hooks. I trialled
many different profiles, using thin sections of wire I could bend by hand into
shape before deciding on the final shape shown in the photos. It allows varying
amounts of items to be stored along its length due to some straight sections
and a few traditional vertical sections for coats to be draped over.
Construction wise,
this was a fairly simple design to build, the metal element was made first and
luckily it was fairly spot on to the drawings I supplied the blacksmith. So once
I had the finished metal section I could make the plinth to mount it onto. Sapele
wood was chosen as from working with this wood before I knew it produced a
wonderful finish and machined well. I wanted the plinth to be a lot smaller in
proportion to the metal section so the design of the loop stood out. And I knew
the metal section was not too heavy so the wood plinth would easily support its
weight on the wall, via two screws.
Overall I’m very
pleased with the design and the look of it. Originally I wanted the loop
element to do just that, ‘loop’ from vertical to horizontal (effectively flow
along the wood) etc. With big radius’s between the transitions, but I was
limited to what radius’s could be created due to the limitations of pipe
benders and the minimum radius’s they could bend too, as this would have to be
fabricated in one piece. So the decision was made to bend at right angles to
allow the full shape to be made without the limitations of the machine
hindering it. I am currently working on having radiuses between the transitions
to give a more flowing aesthetic (finding the optimum radi that can be machined
will take time ). I am also looking into getting the metal section made by a
metal fabricator who could then possibly powder coat the loop, to give some
bright/bold colour options against varying types of wood plinths. Resulting in
a modern, stark appearance to further enhance the scope of this simple but
highly functional design.
