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
