Read here about Robby Cuthbert, a furniture designer who often produces tension-based and tensegrity-related creations.

Bio

Robby Cuthbert is an artist and designer based out of Fort Collins, Colorado. He studied sculpture and architecture at Williams College.

From about 2014 onward Cuthbert began creating furniture pieces structured by mutual tension. The tendons are anchored along the length of opposing struts.

Tension or Tensegrity?

Cuthbert's application of tension in his work conforms with classic tensegrity structures, in that the struts and tendons alone form a coherent, self-stabilizing form. No external anchor is needed. However, Cuthbert's use of multiple tendons along a strut, like the multiple tuning pins along the top of a piano, prevent his tendon network from being 'continuous.' Without this continuity, his work diverges from Snelson's definition of tensegrity as 'islands of compression in a continuous tension net.'