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Stephen
(@stephen)
Noble Member
Joined: 15 years ago
Posts: 279
14/04/2007 8:07 am  

Hello forum members (especially Koen). You guys helped me out last time I needed help with a feature article,so I'm hopeing you can help out again. I'm doing a piece for the South china Morning Post about the flat-pack furniture revolution that seems to be taking place at the moment. The editor wants me to include a few examples of famous designers and well known manufacturers (apart from Ikea) that are currently producing flat-pack designs. (she feels my story is a little too Australia-centric, which it is because I live in Sydney). Any suggestion? For example, do people such as Starck or Lovegrove of Wanders ever create flatpack designs?
Cheers
Stephen
Sydney Australia.


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NULL NULL
(@zwipamoohotmail-com)
Noble Member
Joined: 6 years ago
Posts: 277
14/04/2007 2:06 pm  

maybe not yet
a world famous designer but he is on his way; alain berteau; he designed the 'instant' for Feld. a nice flatpack design chair; prooving that also design and not only mass made ikea stuuf can be flatpacked
http://www.alainberteau.com/


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dcwilson
(@dcwilson)
Illustrious Member
Joined: 15 years ago
Posts: 2358
14/04/2007 6:23 pm  

What does flat pack mean?
I feel so ignorant (and am) some times.


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koen
 koen
(@koen)
Illustrious Member
Joined: 15 years ago
Posts: 2054
14/04/2007 8:16 pm  

Hi Don,
It simply means that it comes in a box and that the user does some of the assembly. North America called it knock-down or KD furniture for a while untill the industry relized that they had taken too much of their point of view on the product and not the consumer's so it became RTA furniture or Ready to assemble.
Some of us may recall what Starck did before someone decided to make him famous...and yes, their was some flat box furniture but than again...I can only remember that we all did something "easy to assemble" in.... the late sixties, early seventies.
An interesting variation on the theme of flat-box is what "Form Us With Love" (J. Löfgren,P.Palmér and J. Petterson) and a people like "Blu-Dot" do with laser-cut metal sheet, conveniently perforated where you are supposed to bend the sheet into shape. It does not require an allen key but it fits the category.


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NULL NULL
(@zwipamoohotmail-com)
Noble Member
Joined: 6 years ago
Posts: 277
14/04/2007 9:04 pm  

and the most
'designlike' flatpack was gaetano pesce's 'donna' 'up' series; which inflated by themselves when opening the packaging!


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Robert Leach
(@robertleach1960yahoo-co-uk)
Illustrious Member
Joined: 6 years ago
Posts: 3212
15/04/2007 2:13 am  

In Simple Terms
It was probably ease of shipment..or cost..?
Anything that took up less volume was (is?) easier and cheaper to ship
I know PS Systems were fairly pioneering in this in Northen Europe (did they go on to be IKEA?)
I have a lovely Danish set of chairs at the moment, and were clearly designed to ship with minimum volume, the legs unscrew..And the seats all fit together. I'll take a pic tomorrow...they are all Control Marked up .....


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koen
 koen
(@koen)
Illustrious Member
Joined: 15 years ago
Posts: 2054
15/04/2007 3:33 am  

I should have
...put in a link to F.U.W.L. Here it is.
You are so right Gerrit The Gaetano Pesce furniture was right on!...but difficult to revers!
The initial idea of Ikea was not to move some of the cost to the consumer but to make small packagings. Ikea started as a postorder company. Some of us can still remember the swedish countryside with the Ikea box next to the mailbox. That's where you picked up your furniture!
http://www.scandinaviandesigncenter.com/ProductDetails.aspx_InnerCatalog...


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SDR
 SDR
(@sdr)
Illustrious Member
Joined: 15 years ago
Posts: 6462
15/04/2007 3:55 am  

I am
a believer in saving space, both when shipping and in moving/storing furniture. I see no reason why virtually any piece of furniture cannot be made to fold. The advantage over RTA is that no assembly is required. A hinge can be as sturdy as any other means of attaching parts together, and this feature need not be readily apparent when looking at the piece.
Like manufactured houses ("trailers"), however, there seems to be a stigma attached to folding furniture. I'd be interested to know how others feel about this, and what issues I may have overlooked.


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