Designers Party :

Cursive Table new : Ji won Choi

19in x 19in x 18in
Aluminum wire, Vegetable tanned leather.

Cursive script was designed to write quickly by hand. A single complex stroke becomes a connected sequence of words. The speed of the technique allows one to write without lifting the pen. Pretzel Table uses leather, an already luxurious material, and juxtaposes it with the spontaneous lines of cursive script. A tension is created through the pairing of a traditionally crafted material with a process designed for efficiency, revealing an aesthetic based on a new way of making. The resulting form speaks to directly to the process of its production.

Ji won Choi

Perm Chair : Eun Sang Ernie Lee

Perm Chair is designed around material aesthetics that can be manipulated through the heating process. Starting from my initial reaction to Twintex® as something that resembled an old grandma's hair, I thought about the use of heat to control and shape forms in different contexts. Process then determined the final form.

First woven on a geometric wooden mold and curled at ambient temperature, Twintex® transforms the typology of an armchair into fluffiness. When heated, the slippery fibers droop due to melted polypropylene. The chair comes out from a machine like loosely curled hair after a perm treatment. Particular attention during the process allows the seat and the back to remain flexible and cushioning, while the fibrous yet hollow structure supports the weight of a human body.

Recyclable Composites

Casamania Opus Incertum : Sean Yoo

Casamania Opus Incertum

Bookcase, Casamania, OPUS INCERTUM, Sean Yoo, 2007. Awarded in 2008 from ID Magazine as design distinction furniture is a bookshelf-display cabinet Flexible and light bookshelf or display cabinet in recyclable expanded polypropylene, multi-functional it can be a dividing wall if put one closed or upon the other. Material 100% recyclable.

Twist, Jongform Belgium

Extend, Jongform Belgium

Sean Yoo was born in Seoul and raised in Los Angeles, making him emblematic of the multi-cultural, globally fluent designers of his generation. His first career was as a city planner, but a visit to the Noguchi Museum in New York inspired him to pursue design. "I was particularly attracted to the way Noguchi applied sculptural qualities to common household objects," says Yoo. "It seemed to give meaning and purpose to otherwise meaningless objects."

Yoo immediately enrolled in the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, graduating in 2000 with a degree in industrial design. After a successful debut at the 2001 Salone Satellite in Milan, he and Angela Tarasco launched their studio, Apt 5 Design. Yoo's work embodies versatility, with projects ranging from a compact bed and desk unit designed for a South Central Los Angeles housing project to Opus Shelving, a recyclable shelving unit that was inspired by a repeating pattern he noticed in the ruins of Pompeii. "I don't think I intentionally try to design multifaceted work.

Join, Next Maruni Japan

It's not that I don't respect traditional typologies, but I've never really been afraid to mix it up a bit," explains Yoo. "I grew up in a rough part of L.A. with mostly other immigrant kids, so it was never a big deal to learn, adapt and incorporate different cultural values as a part of my own. We all spoke at least one other language besides English and had to learn to be flexible and versatile to cope with culture clash at home and in the streets."

That multi-cultural sensibility has continually informed and inspired Yoo's work. Upon relocating to Italy, he found a supportive and open environment for design, one that embraces a global perspective. In 2002, he became the first non-Italian to win the prestigious Concorso Young & Design Award at the Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan, and in 2006, his work was selected by the Italian Ministry of Cultural Affairs and the Design Museum of Milan to be included in the I.DoT (Italian Design on Tour) 2006-2007.

Sean Yoo