Hasta La Ideas

What do you do if you come across a great piece of furniture when traveling? What do you do if the piece of furniture can be brought home on an airplane?

Design Soil is a group project formed within the design department of Kobe Design University, which aims to explore experimental themes in the design educational context today. The concept for the works they exhibited at Design Tide Tokyo revolve around is that of a “souvenir.”

The idea is that the reduction of distribution costs is one of the most important matters to be considered in the furniture industry today. Along with finding ways to reduce package size, the practice of assembling furniture at home has become more common. With “Souvenir,” they have attempted to design furniture that could be dismantled and stored in a package within the hand-luggage size limit allowed by major airlines.

Designer: Akinori Tagashira
Product name: Corker
Product type: stool
Size: w.380 x d.390 x h.360
Material: cork, birch

Akinori Tagashira took on the challenge of creating a comfortable stool from soft and warm, natural materials. Cork not only has soft and warm properties, it also has a natural elasticity that Tagashira applied towards his design.

When disassembled, the piece consists of three legs, a ring and the cork core. The total weight of the pieces is around 5kg, well within the 8kg~10kg limit of carry-on baggage allowance of airlines. Indentations on each leg allow them to hook onto the ring, and then fixed once pressure from the core top is applied. Thanks to the natural elasticity of the cork, the elements become more tightly attached when a load is applied, and thus the act of sitting down itself becomes a design element as well.

The cork and birch are complementary materials, imparting an earthy, organic aesthetic to Tagashira’s design. The cork was custom molded by a cork maker, and although the ring and legs were cut with a machine, the grooves for mounting the legs on the ring were cut by hand. (See also: designer Daniel Michalik on cork, Part 1 & 2, and the “How Cork Is Made” photo gallery.)

More on Nobu Miake’s “CATHEDRAL” (above) after the jump…

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