Tag Archives: furniture design

5 years in the making, this chair is produced in a single mold, reduces waste & saves space!

Posted on by

Chairs are one of the most common projects given to design students because it takes a lot of creativity to turn an everyday mundane object that has already been redesigned a million times into something innovative – it is the design world’s equivalent of “How will you sell me this regular pen?” Designers Martinelli Venezia and Alessandro Stabile discussed the idea of a chair that represents the contemporary world, in terms of production technology, sales methods, and features. The chair had to be an iconic, democratic product, meant to be sold online, and explored the theme of hyper-seriality.

Chair 1:1 was born after a rigorous five-year design process. Venezia and Stabile had finally achieved their goal and created a mountable/demountable chair whose every piece was molded in one go. This optimized the mold size, speeded up production, and reduced waste drastically when compared to a traditional chair. “The chair is sold just as it comes out of the mold, bypassing several steps; it will be the buyer who will complete the process: this is what we call hyper-seriality,” says the designer duo. “When looking at the Chair 1:1, it is inevitable to have a blast from the past, remembering the boxed toy kits. As in that case, there are no screws nor bolts: assembly is effortless and immediate. Mounting an object makes a bond with it and makes you feel its full value; it builds an affection that stops you from getting rid of it.”

The fastening elements of the individual parts are made to be easily producible and extremely resistant. It has been designed to be easily stored, shipped, and transported – 26 boxed up chairs take up only 1 square meter which is the key to increasing online sales as well as shipping sustainably! “While designing, we have often wondered whether in a world saturated with products, it was right to work in the direction of hyper-seriality with a material such as plastic. We believe, however, that the real mistake is to combine it with other materials that make it hard to recycle as well as to use it for packaging or in disposable products,” explain Venezia and Stabile. A sustainable product also has a long lifespan which reduces the need to replacement and therefore reduces excessive consumption as well as production waste which is why Chair 1:1  is made with single-material.

Designers: Martinelli Venezia and Alessandro Stabile

chair1

This modular furniture system merges airport lounges with co-working space for a flexible future!

Posted on by

Do you know what is worse than a delayed flight when you are traveling for work? Waiting in an uncomfortable seat in the lounge which is FOR SURE not close to a charging station so you have to continue working as you race with the depleting battery levels. Airport lounges are not well-designed to incorporate comfort or productivity levels given the amount of time people spend there. Aliante is a simple solution to these issues, it is a modular furniture system that blurs the boundaries between a waiting lounge and a co-working space. This solution could be applied to any space where people tend to wait, I can see it in all the big transportation stations and maybe even malls, hospitals, or (I am going to be bold here) the DMV?!

The furniture system was developed in collaboration with Tecno S.p.A. and the aim was to investigate future work scenarios that as the team thought about the changing trends in behavior and habits. Aliante system offers a versatile working space for both individuals and teams. It features ergonomic seating options, more practical table surfaces, power outlets, and charging stations all placed in a flow that is suited to maximize comfort and productivity. Its extensible rail structure supports all the modules of the system and gives it the flexibility to be configured to any space – it can be set up in a line, as a corner setup, or even as a stand-alone system if you have a smaller space. The structural skeleton can be accessorized and expanded.

Aliante can be easily assembled into diverse arrangements, enabling architects to structure the internal spaces of airport lounges (or any other space) and define flexible coworking areas that work in the favor of those who spend time there. The concept imagines a future where the coworking environment has spread outside normal offices and has become part of public spaces such as supermarkets, banks, hotels, and transportation hubs. It would certainly help with the last-minute deadlines!

Designer: Miriam Yassin, Juan Salazar, Andrea Tortone and Karla Zesati

This sustainably designed chair pushes for the circular economy model in design!

Posted on by

Green Pea is Italy’s first green retail park and to celebrate its inauguration, designer Cristina Celestina created Calatea Green – a chair made to follow the circular economy model! Calatea Green was born from the company’s original piece, Calatea chair which was given a sustainable design refresh.

Calatea Green uses eco-friendly materials and organic aesthetics to fit in the Green Pea retail park. In fact, Celestina reinvented each element of the original Calatea chair’s design after becoming aware of the impact it had on the environment. The green chair’s padding is crafted from recycled PET fabric which is sourced from water bottles – it is both recyclable and compostable. For the legs, Celestina has used FSC-certified ash wood which was sourced from responsibly managed forests with controlled logging. The upholstery fabric on the outside is made of open-end cotton yarn that comes from 100% recycled material certified according to the Global Recycled Standard. Isn’t it interesting how the same chair from the brand could be completely turned into a sustainable version?

To keep the aesthetics aligned with the sustainable values, the original chair’s tropical “Calathea” plants have been replaced with a new design that is hand-painted with non-toxic, water-based ink. This decoration is a tribute to Celestino’s home in Friuli Venezia Giulia, an Italian region bordered by the Julian Alps mountain range known for the native alder tree. Calatea Green reflects Pianca’s eco-friendly model, the studio has had a long-standing tradition of using raw wood from sustainably certified forests and also uses 90% recycled packaging. Additionally, they also rely on a photovoltaic system that meets the total energy demand of production.

Designer: Cristina Celestino and Pianca

Sustainable furniture designs that replace the mass produced plastic designs and make our homes greener!

Posted on by

2020 was a life-altering and drastic year, and 2021 is probably our chance to redeem all our careless mistakes of the past and to start living more consciously and sustainably. We cannot ignore the needs of our planet anymore, we need to take the environment into consideration, and what better way to start doing that than from our own homes? Sustainable furniture is taking the design industry by storm, they’re a step towards making our homes and our daily lives more eco-friendly and sustainable. They’re an attempt to cast aside toxic materials, and instead, add furniture designs to our home that won’t rot away on Earth for years once we’re done with them. We’ve curated a collection of furniture products created from cork, bamboo, rattan, and even orange peels! The options are endless, and the end result is the same – a greener, healthier, and happier Mother Earth!

Rattan is an eco-friendly natural material that is usually used in the creation of baskets or furniture, especially chairs. It is sustainable and resilient which makes it an exceptional wood that renews in just 5-7 years. Designers love rattan for creating furniture because the manufacturing is low-tech and the production process usually involves crafting by hand or using facilities that do not negatively impact the environment. Rattan is also an easy material to mold physically and creatively to fit your idea, it accepts paints and it can be worked into many styles. Moreover, the inner core can be separated and worked into wicker – talk about reducing waste! This stool explores the malleability of rattan as a material in furniture design, we are so used to seeing it in a checkered woven form that the noodle-like seating of this piece becomes a testament to how we can

Vadim Kibardin decided to give an innovative, sustainable twist to it and designed furniture from paper. Why is his furniture a piece of art? Well, he has spent 5,110 hours making it by hand! Every piece of furniture that Kibardin makes is one of a kind, there is no mold and he shapes them all himself. We are now moving towards a sustainable lifestyle but Kibardin has been doing this for over 25 years – he has successfully recycled 2000 pounds of cardboard which is equivalent to saving 17 trees. To put it into perspective, 17 trees absorb 250 pounds of carbon dioxide each year and we need to ramp up the materials we use in design so that they serve a functional purpose while also contributing to slowing down the climate crisis.

Architect, designer, and creative director – José Manuel Carvalho Araújo who Graduated in architecture from the architecture schools of Oporto and Lisbon, Carvalho Araújo, has a keen eye for product design, making him a well-renowned name in his spheres. His simple yet highly useful chair design christened Tumble is the perfect example of intuitive product design that is well-tailored for ultra-modern interiors. It is essentially a platform that serves as a chair, side table, bench seat, storage unit, bookshelf, center table, or lounger. Depending on the nature of use and the available interior space, Tumble can be put to good use with a bit of creative thinking. The furniture piece is crafted out of natural agglomerated cork and natural oak, making it good for the environment too.

Broom is the ingenious result of a design collaboration that both avoids and eliminates waste. It is made from a compound of industrial waste from lumber factories and industrial plastic plants – 75% waste polypropylene and 15% reclaimed wood that usually ends up in the trash. It checks all the boxes for sustainable furniture with its three-fold environmental impact – less energy, less waste, and less carbon. “With the Broom chair, it is about less and more. We chose less – less “style”, less “design”, less material, less waste, less energy. And so, the Broom chair became so much more,” says Starck when talking about the design process to make a chair that does more than being a surface to sit on.

knot_chair_layout

knot_02

Simple? Check. Sustainable? Check. Stunning? Check. The Knot chair will check all your boxes when it comes to a stool-style seating solution. The structure is made almost entirely of beautiful, eco-friendly bamboo. The natural material is bent using a unique crisscross weave that reinforces its natural strength and creates an exquisite, sculptural aesthetic. Lightweight, long-lasting, and integrable into a variety of styles, it’s sure to be a timeless addition to any interior.

“Unlimited imagination and unimaginable needs of people could be contradictory to the limitations of our planet and our capacities as human beings. The consumption patterns we have adapted have led to global warming, polluted air, soil, and water while putting pressure on people, both in working conditions and a psychological obsession to gain more without answering the real needs,” says designer Ariyan Davoodian on what inspired him to create modular furniture for every space. The aim was to reduce the unnecessary (and constant) buying by using creativity and sustainable development to meet our furniture needs that also work for our environment. Un-Lim is an ageless collection that can be molded and changed over time – think of it as redesigning your own furniture using the same pieces to create a whole new form and function! It comes with 8 different parts that you can combine to match your space and needs. Turn it from a bed to a table to a chair seamlessly. The separate modules come with a notebook that tells the story of its production timeline from the furniture’s point of view! It also includes a piece of wood from the tree that was used and a shoutout to all wood craftsmen who worked on your set.

Looking to make a switch to a sustainable lifestyle in 2020? Meet the Dot Collection – these modern pieces are made from the waste produced during manufacturing furniture. This group will keep with the aesthetic of your space while also allowing you to continue reusing, reducing, and recycling. The Dot collection includes a set of chairs, bench, and side table that all come in subtle earthy colors with a combination of cool and warm. The inspiration for this modern sustainable set was a factory visit where the Studio Pesi team noticed a lot of leftover material.

OTTAN Studio is completely obsessed with sustainable designs, and they’re implementing an innovative method to create them! They’ve been transforming orange peels, cut grass, carrot pulp, fallen leaves, and nutshells into design objects. These products range from tiles to tables and even include lighting designs. The OTTAN coffee table is one of their unique pieces (and also one of my favorites) created from expired lentils and cut grass! Carrot pulp, orange peels, and artichoke leaves were used to make the lamp within the table.

The SMĪLE, which is a part of the ChopValue catalog, uses a raw material that there’s an abundance of – used chopsticks. These chopsticks undergo heat, steam, and pressure processes to create a new engineered material, thus giving them a new lease of life that’s much longer than what they were originally intended for. The SMĪLE shelf is a modular system that relies on recycled steel frames that fix to a wall, holding shelves in between. The steel frames can be arranged practically in any orientation and arrangement, giving you the freedom to create your own shelving design that can even be expanded if you want to, in the future! Depending on the size of the shelf you buy, it comes with the recycled steel frames and ChopValue’s signature chopstick shelves. Each shelf uses hundreds of bamboo chopsticks, compressed together to create a unique looking material with its own bespoke grain-pattern.

When you think eco-friendly, aesthetics is not the first thing that comes to your mind. Most of us will be stumped if we are asked to name three chic eco-friendly products to use daily, but Andrea Juhasz has created an entire interior space that is not only stylish but completely eco-friendly – above recycling and beyond sustainability. Let’s take a look at the details of what makes for a beautiful environment inside our home while protecting the one outside it. Sustainable and eco-friendly materials were used in every aspect of the house – right from flooring with corkwood and bamboo to using jute and coconut fiber carpets without compromising on the visual design. These natural elements in your home can reduce pollution and they are also anti-allergic and antistatic.

This furniture system can furnish your entire room just by repurposing stainless steel cable ties!

Posted on by

Cable ties are those flexible fastening strips that bend back and forth like those blow-up air dancers that hang around drive-thru oil changes and car washes. Nowadays, they’re typically made from nylon or plastic and are used to help organize and hold together bunches of cables. Around their conception in 1958, they were initially cut from stainless steel and invented for use in airplanes as wire harnesses. Today, the designers at South Korea-based Dawn Studio have returned to the cable tie’s initial form in order to use the stainless steel metal strips as fasteners for a new interior furniture system.

In order to construct Dawn’s Cable Furniture, the creatives at Dawn Studio essentially take the unused cable ties that bind various items together like delivery shipment boxes or bunches of cables and use them instead to fasten parts of furniture together. For example, the system’s featured side table is constructed by looping stainless steel cable ties through laser-cut slits found on the tabletop and its legs, forming a simple and sturdy table. The furniture system’s easy assembly makes it possible to build other furniture variations like umbrella holders and lighting fixtures. Following a similar construction process as the side table, the build of Dawn’s Cable Furniture’s lighting fixtures is slightly more complex. In order to fit sockets and varying bulb sizes, the metallic slabs that form each lamp’s covers are adapted to promote optimal lighting. In addition to these more fundamental furniture pieces, Dawn Cable furniture features a clock built from joined stainless steel cable ties that employ nuts and bolts to form the clock’s center dial. With Dawn’s Cable Furniture, users can create monochromatic vanity spaces or moody nighttime reading nooks.

The evolution of a product design often seems to mirror the changing needs of its users, but when it comes to single-use items like cable ties, the pursuit for durability is usually abandoned for an overall less costly production process. Recognizing the untapped potential of stainless steel cable ties, the team at Dawn Studio sought to transform the product’s single-use identity, turning them instead into permanent fasteners that hold entire furniture systems together.

Designer: DAWN Studio

A flatpack, modular, flexible furniture system that grows with your needs without taking up space!

Posted on by

You know what is the most annoying thing about moving? Packing up your furniture which actually doesn’t really “pack” so you basically have to play Jenga with your pieces in the U-Haul truck. How cool would it be if we could roll up our furniture just like we roll up our clothes to save space right? Well, designer Richard Price kind of make it happen by creating Plus+ – a flat-packed furniture system that maximizes living space and minimizes storage space!

Plus+ fits your needs and comes with multiple configurations. The flexible furniture system increases its likelihood to adapt by using a snap-together frame with a joint system across the whole range. The modular design can be easily be assembled and upgraded with new features or additional accessories which enables it to grow with your needs or new spaces. Flexible furniture is the future as people shift to more flexible lifestyles that blend work and living in the same space.

The CMF has been chosen to be minimal, lightweight, and universal so it can work for homes, offices, schools, or any other setting. Using the felt-based material makes the “walls” more usable while also taking away the usual risk of scratches on furniture. It lets you easily attach accessories and doesn’t require any of that wall-nail-hammer trouble. The aluminum frames are durable and light – you can use them to create seating, walls, wardrobe, or cubicles! Plus+ is furniture designed to make your life easier with IKEA-like easy assembly, versatile functionality, and a design that enables you to use your furniture for a long time no matter where you go!

Designer: Richard Price

plus1

plus2

plus3

plus4

plus4

Japanese tea rituals inspired this flexible, modular, origami-like wooden table!

Posted on by

Tea time is significant in many Asian cultures, it is a moment of pause in the day where one can enjoy a peaceful moment of solitude or socialize and relax with friends. Tea time is a beautiful ritual in Japanese culture and Hasu is a tea table inspired by that zen practice. Hasu transforms itself as the tea ritual progresses making it a contemporary piece of furniture that still pays a tribute to the process.

It starts as a minimal compact structure and ends as a complete furniture set for tea time. Hasu’s design allows storing an extensive tea collection while presenting it in a unique and clean manner – it is almost like you can fold or unfold the tea time ritual like origami. There is a lot of storage for all the objects needed for tea rituals and the table allows you to present them one by one during tea time, it is all on-site so everything is handy as well as neatly tucked away. The unfolding of the four upper tabletops marks the beginning of the tea time ritual. Extend the seating to four guests by simply pulling the floor chairs from the table. Even when it is not in use, it still upgrades the space as an abstract piece.

Hasu is produced using several construction techniques (traditional + modern) and different types of wood joineries. The body is crafted from solid oak and features powder-coated aluminum details. It includes a brand new hinge system that was specifically designed for Hasu. The simple yet innovative design gives tea lovers a chance to elevate their rituals without adding clutter. It allows you to disconnect from the surroundings and cherish peaceful moments with loved ones while enjoying the warmth of the teacup in your palms.

“Just like an opening lotus flower, when the first rays of sun caress the horizon during sunrise, symbolizes the start of a new day,” says Mortelmans while perfectly describing the soul of Hasu.

Designer: Dieter Mortelmans

Yanko Design recommends these unique furniture designs to shop that give IKEA a run for its money!

Posted on by

Furniture designs are incredibly important to any space, whether it’s an office or a home. And, with this ongoing pandemic, our homes are now our new office! The right furniture can really set a space apart, creating a comfortable and functional home cum office that caters to all our needs. Our living space nowadays should be one where we can comfortably longe about, and work efficiently. So, we’ve curated a collection of super functional and aesthetically pleasing furniture designs that are sure to not only brighten up your living space but provide unique solutions to all your furniture problems. From work chairs that take care of your posture to a smart bed designed with everything you could possibly think of – we’ve got all your needs covered!

The Soul Seat helps you sit in a neutral posture that is effortless and comfortable. The springs on the elevated perch tilt the pelvis forward, open the hips and help align the spine. You can sit in several positions if crossing legs isn’t comfortable for you, the chair enables you to switch between multiple positions frequently keeping your body engaged and blood flowing. For some, this may also alleviate neck and back pain! The height of both levels can be adjusted to suit your workspace setup. I know there were many comments from our Instagram audience about it missing a backrest and while I don’t think it causes harm if you sit without one (people meditate and work in this very posture for hours in Asian countries), I do think having an option of a detachable backrest can help those who are just starting to work on their posture ease into it. It is about having that choice which opens up many more people to use the Soul Seat, however, there are countless reviews that mention it being comfortable as it is so it is a great design but it does come down to personal preference.

Click Here to Buy Now: $980

Fitwork’s design sort of embodies a no-excuse mentality to being fit. Whether it’s the excuse of ‘being too busy’, or of ‘not wanting to go all the way to the gym’, Fitwork combats it by bringing the gym not just to your house, but to your workspace. Designed as a product to let you work and work out at the same time, this crazy hybrid of a desk-chair and treadmill keeps your legs active while you work. Whether you’re sitting in front of a laptop or standing in front of one, it’s the sedentary lifestyle that Fitwork tackles. The setup (which is sure to grab a few eyeballs) comes with an office chair attached to a treadmill underneath, and an elliptical in front. Coupled with an elevating desk, the Fitwork allows you to keep the lower half of your body active while you work, giving you cardio as well as keeping your spine engaged, whether you’re sitting or standing while working.

Click Here to Buy Now: $1499

KUR!O’s design features a simple grid base that you wedge shelving-plates into. The plates interlock with each other, creating walls and floors for your shelf, allowing you to store all your belongings in the dedicated spaces you planned out for them! The base of the shape-shifting, infinitely customizable shelf is its underlying grid, made from sandwiched wood-fiber boards. The cuts in the grid go as much as 20mm deep, allowing you press-fit powder-coated steel panels into it. The steel panels come in a variety of colors, giving the KUR!O its uniquely vibrant appeal, and feature carefully-placed cuts that let individual panels interlock into each other. The 2mm thick panels are heavy-duty enough to take on large loads, making the KUR!O robust, despite the fact that there isn’t any screwing or gluing of parts. Each KUR!O even comes with a set of 8mm thick steel sticks or dowels that peg into the circular holes at the intersection of the cutouts. Plug a stick in and you instantly have yourself a series of hooks right beside your shelf-spaces so you can both hang as well as place items on your KUR!O.

Click Here to Buy Now: $318

This is the ultimate bed just like its name states – the Hariana Tech Smart Ultimate Bed! You know how we always have to get up to get stuff before we settle into relax mode? Well, this bed was designed to have everything you will need to relax within your bed frame. It has an integrated reclining massage chair with a remote, a built-in Bluetooth speaker, a bookshelf, a reading lamp, an air cleaning system, an area to plug-in and charge your devices, a foot-stool that opens up for extra storage, and a pop-up desk for the ultimate WFH setup, Netflix marathon or cozy reading hours. The sound system also features an SD card slot, an auxiliary port, and a USB port. Another interesting detail about the Hariana bed is a password-protected safe box for you to store your most precious belongings – for me, it would be my passport and snacks!

Click Here to Buy Now: $2800

Bringing new life to the room divider, the designers at Molo, a design and production studio led by Stephanie Forsythe and Todd MacAllen, created their own rendition, calling it a paper softwall or folding partition, one that folds and bends, with the flexibility to be shaped in any curved or linear formation, and expands and contracts, like breathing. When expanded, the paper softwall is like a monolithic accordion paper organizer that is surprisingly lightweight and can easily change direction to define private spaces or supply dramatic backdrops for performances. Each paper softwall expands to a total of 15 feet when fully extended and positioned in a straight line, but can reach any length in between for shorter, or more curved lines. When the soft paperwall is properly compressed, it recoils and achieves the thickness of a book.

Click Here to Buy Now: $950

The SMĪLE shelf is a modular system that relies on recycled steel frames that fix to a wall, holding shelves in between. The steel frames can be arranged practically in any orientation and arrangement, giving you the freedom to create your own shelving design that can even be expanded if you want to, in the future! Depending on the size of the shelf you buy, it comes with the recycled steel frames and ChopValue’s signature chopstick shelves. Each shelf uses hundreds of bamboo chopsticks, compressed together to create a unique looking material with its own bespoke grain-pattern. Most disposable chopsticks are manufactured using bamboo (because of how fast it grows), and travel nearly 8,000 – 10,000 kilometers from China to other parts of the world, only to be used for 30 minutes before being thrown into the trash. Instead of letting them enter a landfill, ChopValue harvests them and turns them into this new material that can be used again.

Click Here to Buy Now: $139

This particular piece of cat furniture is extremely easy to set-up and seamlessly integrates with your current home setting minus the bulkiness of a conventional cat tree. In 2020, it is all about how modular the product is, and that applies to pet furniture too. With Catssup you can create a DIY jungle gym by simply clamping the different parts onto existing furniture and changing the set-up whenever ‘you’ (read: your cat) need. The best part is that it doesn’t require any floor space so if you want to lie down and WFH – you absolutely can with the extra room! The Catssup set includes a Dot Step, a Sleeping Pill, a Space Ball, a Cloud Lounge, and a Climbing Tower – I would just like to say that I strongly believe human furniture should also have fun labels like this and maybe we would be more invested in it.

Click Here to Buy Now: $356

BeYou is a “transforming chair that adapts to you,” which means that whatever seated position is calling your name, BeYou will adjust accordingly. The spirit of this chair and what makes it so special is that it isn’t fixed by any means, it was designed to be ever-changing to meet your growing needs. The convertible chair is cushioned with soft and durable fabric that wraps itself over a double layer of foam for a bouncy and form-fitting seat rest. Oak veneer coats the exterior parts of BeYou so that the chair not only conforms to your body but also your room and office, or wherever you choose to position your BeYou chair. The quick-release hinges that switch the chair’s positions and presentation are user-friendly in that they operate through simple, intuitive mechanical movements.

Click Here to Buy Now: $349

In a parallel universe without gravity, we’d probably be surrounded by storage units like the Geco Hub. You see, gravity allows us to simply place items on a horizontal surface, which is almost the fundamental aspect of a cabinet. The Geco Hub, on the other hand, grabs items almost like a pair of hands. Its silicone ‘fingers’ let you store everything from your keys to sunglasses, and from wallets to even post-it notes. The hubs come in a series of modular tiles that you can attach to any type of wall using either screws or adhesive strips. Add as many hubs as you need and you’ve got a wall of storage you can place items on, into, or under. The silicone ‘fingers’ have enough friction to securely hold onto things like keychains, wallets, spectacles, cases, notebooks, and stationery. They come with flaps too that let you secure notes onto them, giving you a wall of storage and functionality – which is unusually pleasing to look at as well as a really good way to declutter spaces.

Click Here to Buy Now: $29

The SSD chair stands for Simple, Strong, and Durable (and not Solid State Drive, as one might think). Designed to be an alternative to flimsy, cheap, run-of-the-mill plastic or wood chairs, the SSD Chair has a simple, classic appeal, and is made to last for decades. The SSD is strong too. Designed with a metal tubing structure that is more than capable of years of everyday use, the SSD gives you the advantage of strength as well as the comfort of having European-made plywood seats and backrests. The SSD is durable too. Designed to be sustainably manufactured, the SSD uses strong components, ethically and sustainably sourced wood, a simple design, a minimal number of parts, and even uses 80% recycled packaging.

Click Here to Buy Now: $178

This pet-friendly sofa’s two-tiered design means everyone has a place to rest!

Posted on by

Just like their owners, pets need space. A dog bed to call their own, a cat tower they can easily climb up and down, or a corner of the living room no human can reach. And when it comes to time spent together, it’s important for our human spaces, like sofas and big beds, to be accessible for our animal companions. To create a sofa for both pets and their owners, Hyun Jin Oh designed CoZY, an adjustable, two-tiered couch that meets both pets and their humans right where they are.

When it comes to pet furniture, during the construction phases, functionality sometimes outweighs style, but Hyun Jin Oh found a sweet compromise with CoZY. The sofa’s stripped-down frame is made from stainless steel, evoking an industrial-chic personality, and utilizes the tension of four bold, bright red straps of leather that wrap around the steel bars of CoZY’s armrest and base, two along the rear and one on both sides of CoZY. Hyun Jin Oh’s sofa was designed specifically to create a space that’s accessible for older and smaller dogs to take a breather. Since we typically rest on sofas, dogs naturally follow suit, but sometimes the sofa requires too high of a leap for a smaller or older dog to manage all on its own. In order to encourage dogs to join their human on the couch, Hyun Jin Oh’s CoZY design utilizes a pull-out wooden board that slides easily along the sofa’s X-axis.

Once the sofa’s wooden board is fully extended, a quarter of CoZY’s cushioned area lowers down for small and old dogs to easily hop onto and rest beside their owners. On the days, your dog would rather be alone, simply slide the wooden board back into place to return to CoZY’s original form. Even for the dog owners who typically don’t allow their animal companions to rest on human furniture due to the hassle that sometimes follows – stains from dirty paws, leftover clumps of fur from shedding, or maybe you just wanna spread your legs some – CoZY provides owners with plenty of legroom and separate sofa space, and also an already defined space for pets to relax without worry, so you can too.

Designer: Hyun Jin Oh

This design solves 3 TV watching issues by combining an OLED screen with modular furniture!

Posted on by

This pandemic saw popular streaming platforms skyrocket even higher as we all spent more time indoors. Research firm The NPD Group reported sales of TVs that were 65 inches were up 53% (in units) over the first half of 2020 and TVs bigger than 65 inches were up 77% in April-June compared to a year ago. Not every space is made to accommodate large TVs but everyone deserves a good Netflix binge session to get through this year and that is why we want to encourage TV designs like the Mondrian – a conceptual OLED screen that works in harmony with a modular furniture setup!

Inspired by the Dutch painter Piet Mondrian’s composition of form and color, the Mondrian setup was made to allow a wide range of applications and blend into any interior setting. The aim was to solve three issues we experience with watching TV as we currently do – taking up space, not matching with the aesthetics, and lack of expandability. Urban apartments and single-person households need to maximize their space and should not have to choose between a large appliance and furniture when they can have both. Talking about interior aesthetics, TVs are now increasingly slimmer while furniture remains warm and cozy – this causes a visual mismatch when the two are put together. Mondrian’s design serves both purposes with one seamless structure. TVs are now being used in many ways and need to be able to adapt to the different content it supports, not just static pre-made products.

The contemporary piece of furniture is highly customizable and perfect for a flexible lifestyle. Piet Mondrian himself didn’t just focus on the objects itself, but rather on the relationships formed once you connect two or more together and that is the philosophy followed by Mondrian’s design team who said, “The final form should not exist in nuts and bolts, but somewhere in between.” This is also why it was created with a DIY spirit so you can build your own custom combination using the hardened steel pedestal, bottom-up grid, mounting solutions and the OLED screen. Choose your size,  stack up the rows and columns, screw in the legs and the nodes, add shelfs and lastly add the rotating mount for your screen. It gives you complete freedom of how the modules will come to life in your space.

Designers: Harry Dohyun Kim, Weichih Chen and Fuhua Wang