Last year, Korean designer Jinil Park exhibited his Drawing Series chair and armchair – two chairs that look like drawings. They are so realistic it is difficult to believe the photograph of the chair is not a drawing. The designer created these one-off pieces as an experiment, wanting to see whether he could turn his rough drawings into actual three-dimensional objects that work as a seat: “I created the objects by hand without even a single CAD plan,” says Park. “Choosing the materials, refining and welding them together to make an object was very difficult. But simultaneously it is a difficult and a fun process.”
Also last year, the Canvas series, this time by Japanese design studio YOY, also plays with the idea of turning a drawing into a three dimensional piece of furniture. Hanging Canvas Sofa, which was shown at Salone Satellite during Milan Design Week 2013, is on first glance a print of a drawing of a chair (or sofa) on a stretched canvas. However, these pieces, whose frame is constructed out of wood and aluminium, feature an elastic fabric which allows the user to sit on the canvas – rendering the two-dimensional image of the chair, an actual chair that it is possible to sit in (and is apparently surprisingly comfortable). Read more