Hasta La Ideas

Here are some more images of Yuya Ushida‘s expanding plastic sofa for Dutch company Ahrend, featured in our movie interview with the designer published yesterday on Dezeen Screen.

Called XXXX_Sofa, the piece is made of 8000 sticks and 2000 rings that snap together.

The components are injection-moulded from recycled plastic bottles.

A stool version with 600 parts is available in kit form.

Ushida originally created the system in bamboo while studying at the Design Academy Eindhoven in the Netherlands.

Watch our video interview with Yuya Ushida on Dezeen Screen »

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Here are some more details from the designer:

Dutch office furniture company Royal Ahrend NV is producing transformable furniture XXXX_Sofa and XXXX_Stool designed by Yuya Ushida.

XXXX_Sofa/XXXX_Stool are industrial version of Ushida’s Graduation project SOFA_XXXX for the exam at the Design Academy Eindhoven in June 2010. It was rewarded with the maximum level of 10 and the graduation was cum laude. This original model is handmade of about 8000 bamboo sticks and 2000 rings. The basic idea is that a chair can change into a sofa by a simple movement without any tools…

A chair becomes a sofa, and a sofa becomes a chair.

“Whenever I see it the beauty of the simple geometrical structure and its repetition always fascinates me. SOFA_XXXX is made of just 4 different lengths of sticks, rings and joints. the parts on their own don’t seem to be special, but when put together in a regular pattern their beauty appears. It can be contracted, which makes it easier for transportation…”

This was a my concept for SOFA_XXXX, which was my graduation project 2010. I used bamboo sticks and It was all hand made. Therefore it is hard to mass produce. However I prefer to focus on our daily life rather than making an art.

In order to use as a daily life object, we chose to use plastic injection molding. And you can click in to build it up. It consists of only 8 elements, you can make many shapes. (e.g. Sofa, Stool, Table and Bench etc…)

Also it is used genuine recycled PET, no glass fiber for strength. I wanted to do something with the PET bottle that overflows in our society.

My design motto is to make people happy while using things that I have made. Also, I would like to translate a beauty that is surrounding us into my objects.

XXXX_Sofa and XXXX_Stool suit this very well. Of course these can be used as a furniture, but also you can enjoy the geometrical structure like your own Eiffel tower! Then, if you put together it by yourself, I am sure, it definitely will be existence more than furniture for you.

XXXX_Sofa is made by 8000 sticks and 2000 rings
XXXX_Stool is made out of around 600 parts (sticks and rings)
XXXX_Stool is available in kit form

See also:

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Diederik Schneemann at Ventura Lambrate	Benjamin Hubert at Ventura Lambrate	Laurens van Wieringen at Ventura Lambrate