SOLIS
YOUR TRANQUIL ESCAPE
A personalized, modular sofa system aimed to reduce clutter and adapt to changing lifestyles
Location
San Jose State University
Designer
Tyler Lee
Client
N/A
Year
4th year
Every home has a living room. It’s the heart of daily life. It’s where people gather, relax, and express their lifestyle.
A living room should always feel comfortable, inviting, and uniquely personal.
Problem Statement:
However, when furnishing the living room, people face challenges with size constraints and limited customization.
In cramped living spaces, users struggle to balance comfort with efficient storage solutions to satisfy their lifestyle needs.
My team and I then determined two core user groups for this dilemma:
First Time Renters: Mordecai and Rigby from “Regular Show”
Intro: Two dudes in their young 20s that are starting to navigate independent living while balancing work, hobbies, and a social lifestyle
Personality: Lazy, disorganized, playful, social
Problem: Difficulty in minimizing clutter within shared spaces and a very chaotic lifestyle that changes day by day
Goals/needs: Space efficiency while maintaining a comfortable and functional living space for their housemates and guests, suited for play and practicality.
New Families: The Parr Family from “The Incredibles”
Intro: A young superhero family that tries to balance saving the world and living a normal and comfortable life
Personality: Ambitious, family-oriented, analytical
Problem: Lack of adaptable solutions for growing children, as well as clutter and difficulty organizing shared spaces
Goals/needs: Comfortable, family-friendly design that supports socialization and play as well as a organized and functional space to support multiple activities
My team and I understood their pain points and decided to create a home goods brand that would best suit their needs…
TV Stand (Kavin)
Coffee Table (Owen)
Shelving (Hamza)
Sofa (Tyler)
We then identified the four core pieces of living room furniture and explored how they could help Mordecai & Rigby as well as The Incredibles, establish and maintain comfort and balance.
I focused on rethinking the sofa to better serve their lifestyles.
MOOD BOARD
INSPIRATION
An exploration of form and movement that depict comfort, balance, and personality.
Prototypes were made to understand the experience of using a modular sofa, as well as to better understand the scale of the product.
I then went back to sketching and refined the idea of a modular sofa. I thought there was something there, since modularity in a seating solution can permit comfort and adaptability to our targeted users with their changing lifestyles. Now it was about translating that idea through a form that visually represents that.
I translated the idea into CAD (Fusion 360), but it felt overcomplicated and inconsistent with my team’s design language. I had pushed the modular concept too far—so I decided to simplify…
Using AI tools such as Vizcom allowed me to quickly visualize concepts. Here you can see Solis starting to take shape, along with its key details. The design felt a lot more approachable.
