A form has to earn its place.

The pair of solid side panels is what interests me most about this chair. They anchor the form and give it a strong, grounded presence. Visually, they make sense immediately.

Structurally, I’m less sure.

This is the second chair in my experiment translating AI-generated furniture images into CAD. At this stage, the model is still a first pass. It lets me study the form and proportions and start thinking about where structure might live. There is no proper joinery, no load calculation and no resolved approach to manufacturing behind the render.

The side panels seem like a natural place to begin. They could act as a backbone, carrying much of the load through the chair. But that is an interpretation of the form, not something I’ve established. A part can look substantial without being useful in the way I’m imagining.

If the panels are structural, I need to understand how the other parts connect to them and how loads pass through those connections. Their presence alone doesn’t answer that. If they are mainly cosmetic, then I need to understand where the supporting structure belongs and how the panels relate to it.

The same visual idea could lead toward quite different objects depending on what those panels are asked to do.

The image gives them a place in the chair’s character. Taking the design toward a physical object means deciding what else, if anything, that place asks them to do.

My next step is to break the chair down and question the assumptions holding the concept together. I want to understand which parts of the form can support a credible construction, which might need to change, and where advice from people with furniture experience would help.

I still like those side panels. Now I need to find out what they’re actually doing.