The Brooklyn-based design/build studio 4-Pli designs and manufactures furniture cut from sustainably-harvested plywood on their in-house CNC mill which are then finished with low-VOC paints and varnishes. Much of their collection has elements that repeat, slide together, or nest within each other. They’re not exactly flat-pack design, but they’re also not hand-carved one-of-a-kind pieces (luckily for us). Their work finds a wonderful balance between the two extremes, resulting in work that is simple and sophisticated. (more…)

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I love cardboard furniture. There’s something alchemic about turning such an omnipresent, mundane material into something other than a box. Cardboard furniture is really great for temporary purposes such as outfitting a dorm, traveling, and in Green Lullaby’s case, providing for rapidly sprouting children. Green Lullaby has designed a small series of cardboard furnishings for children of various ages that are eco-friendly and damned useful, often incorporating storage space in their design. With a cradle, bench, table, and stools, each piece appears to be sturdy, beautiful, and functional, although I would hope the cradle is at least water-resistant. (more…)

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Mio who I’ve written about here before, have some great puzzle products. I like the Haute Surface Houndstooth Set because it’s fun and functional. It’s a collection of interlocking pieces of cork in two contrasting colours; tan and chocolate. The pieces when assembled can perform a variety of functions. “The trivets can be arranged into stunning table runners, table protective arrangements, place mats or even mouse pads”. The designer Jaime Salm was inspired by hounds tooth patterns in textile design but then I guess you knew that from the name. The concept was to use a pattern as a means to decorate and protect tables, while encouraging creative table presentation. This would be a perfect desk item for anyone looking for something to entertain them while procrastinating from work.

It’s got a few ticks in the environmental column too. Being modular it extends the life of the product as individual pieces can be replaced. I guess the idea is that it would also extend the life of the table it is protecting and it’s also made from reconstituted cork. Their other designs are the Haute Surface ZigZag Set and the ModuTiles.

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Because We Can is a design-build studio that has created some really amazing work. Their flat pack designs are especially interesting, such as the flat pack couch, designed as a place to rest your feet and store your vinyl. equally cool is the flat pack furniture system designed for Sunpower, Inc. The system consists of tables, stools, & signage, and is fit together with no adhesives, requiring only a few hard smacks with a mallet. (more…)

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The Sitscape is the longest couch I’ve ever seen. It’s a six metre long concept by Hackenbroich and Mühr that is made up of various sections, the sections are connected by aluminium spacers. The design uses digital manufacturing to realise the large and complex from quickly and easily. The concept was to incorporate six different sitting positions into the one piece of furniture with smooth transitions between each section, thus creating the perfect fit for any position. “The transitional areas between these positions are undetermined in their use. They provide new and unexpected possibilities, which have to be discovered by the clients”. The couch is upholstered with round white leather cushions.

It’s nice how they used the individually simple 2d shapes to create such a complex looking 3d form. It not the most practical solution by it’s definitely and interesting sculptural piece, that I’m sure would be a great conversation starter.

Via, Iaac blog and design boom

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Ryan Frank is a South African born product designer with an obvious passion for sustainable design. He designs mostly furniture; my favourite piece is the Harvey stool. It uses layers of CNC machined waste wood including “a variety of ply, OBS and chipboard”. It’s interesting how this stool challenges the usual furniture aesthetic, although materials like chip board/MDF are often used in furniture they are usually hidden by paint or a veneer. I could understand if people think this stool is ugly however I think the fact that it’s such a cool idea and it’s environmentally friendly makes me see this as a really beautiful piece of furniture.

I really like the way the machined layers have been built up to make the 3D form and the way he has used design to add value to the materials.

Frank has also designed a coat/belt/accessory hanger made from compressed recycled newspapers that uses a sixties style print beautifully. As I mentioned in a previous post; prints are a great way to add another dimension to a product.

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Turns out mass customization can be very easy; SwopIt is a side table that can change with the seasons. It is made from two layers of bent acrylic with a piece of fabric sandwiched in between. The user can change the fabric (or put in some other flat object) to whatever they want whenever they want, all you need is a piece of fabric and a pair of scissors. The life of the table is extended therefore it is better for the environment and it allows for each table to be personalized. This very clever table was made by From Us With Love; a young design studio in Old town, Stockholm.

The designer’s set out to design products that are innovative and sustainable; I think they succeeded with this one. They say “We are driven by the genuine love for creating and take great pride in what we do”. They have some other cool products worth checking out too, like the cord lamp.

Via sub-studio

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Norwegian product development company Meld has been working for over three years to develop their customizable chair. The motivation was their dissatisfaction with mass produced furniture and seeing the same furniture in all their friends’ homes. The aim was to produce a chair that uses platform design to have maximum flexibility allowing designers and users to “change its shape, look and feel without the chair falling apart. Then show people how they can make it their own by putting it together in unique ways.”

Meld believes that “The world is not ready for mass customization on a grand scale. Presented with the choice of ‘anything’, most people will be overwhelmed and simply draw a blank. To both educate and react to this reality, platform design gives a basic starting point, a first step in moving to a mass customized world.”

It looks like there will be more customizable products coming soon “All of the products MELD creates will be via platform design, and I can say that we have several lined up for the near future.”

via core 77

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I was at the power house museum in Sydney last weekend and saw this cool little piece of laser cut furniture in the “Inspired! Design across time” exhibition. It’s called Zaishu and is from Australian designer Matthew Butler. It’s an art covered table, box or seat made from five pieces of plywood that slot together without any fasteners (making the flat pack design really easy to assemble). They have artwork from “various artists, community groups and tribal art” printed on them. You may have seen them before, they’ve been around for a while now originally launched in 2004. It’s awesome to see that a high end product like this is using a process that we all have access to, and it’s doing so well! The design is really set off by the graphic detail. Incorporating a strong graphic element in products is a trend that I’ve noticed in some of the ponoko products too, like the raya bracelet and the lissabon bedside table.

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We all know that IKEA are the current kings of flat pack design.

The two dimensional forms that fit together to make a three dimensional product is the basis of many of their furniture, home wares and storage solutions. This is one of the simplest and most effective way to realise a design solution.

Now you can compete with IKEA to design your very own flat pack design as many Ponoko users already have, or you can modify, customise or hack an existing IKEA product.

IKEA Hacker is a blog dedicated to modifying existing IKEA products to create your own personalised design. From desk lamps to shelves, breakfast bars to bird cages. You can see some examples on the Instructables IKEA Hacks site and even download the CAD files for some designs.

For an incredibly refined and well realised example of IKEA hacks, Kieren Jones has produced some elegant designs which can be seen at MoCo Loco.
Image via Moco loco

What is most exciting here is that this can be seen as a simple starting point to modify any existing product, or use this as inspiration to design your own flat pack creation.

Existing examples of some wild flat pack designs range from the overly ambitious flat pack house (courtesy of Gregg Flieshman at Treehugger) featured in a previous Ponoko post, or check out Ben Wilson’s sexy flat pack chair. Also inspiring is Totem’s furniture range designed to fit together without the need for any tools or mechanical fasteners. In a similar vein is the beautiful PANO chair by Studio.Lo, found courtesy of Bloesem, or the Architect’s Birdfeeder designed by architect Doug Patt.
Architects Birdfeeder found via Cool Hunting.
Ben Wilson’s Chairfix
PANO chair from Studio.lo

So take a look at some of the flat pack designs already in Ponoko’s marketplace like Pepe Rocks, Prometheus, or the Sliding Shelf Table and get hacking.

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