AUDI AG

R18 Ultra Chair designed by Clemens Weisshaar and Reed Kram for Audi

Clemens Weisshaar and Reed Kram have developed a chair using methods borrowed from the future of automotive manufacturing in collaboration with Audi's Lightweight Design Center. The chair's multi-material space-frame is made from carbon composites, carbon micro-sandwich and high strength aluminium and weighs only 2.2 kg or 77 ounces. The chair embodies Audi's ultra lightweight design credo completely by following strict guidelines to shave off every ounce of excess weight.

The R18 Ultra Chair's genesis incorporates crowd-sourced data acquired through thousands of testing sessions held in Milan during the Salone Internazionale del Mobile in April 2012. This data set was then processed by custom algorithms to optimize the final geometry and construction of the final object accordingly.

At Design Miami/ the chair's designers and engineers are giving visitors an intimate insight into their studios and laboratories, displaying drawings, samples, models, mock-ups, moulds and prototypes from the various stages in the development process including an industrial welding robot and the chair's namesake, the 24h of Le Mans winning R18 Ultra race car.