Into the fold

3-MIN READ3-MIN

Published: 12:00am, 28 Jan 2011

Think 'flat-pack' furniture, and what comes to mind are bleached pieces of wood stuffed into a box made by a certain iconic Swedish firm, or cheaper Taiwanese imports. But the notion that furniture - or accessories - can be dismantled and rebuilt easily, taking up little space in shipping or storage, is being increasingly explored by cutting-edge designers worldwide. In a major step forward some have created pieces that can be reassembled in minutes, a refreshing change from their predecessors, which required engineering degrees just to get started.

Designers say the burgeoning interest in the field is perhaps due to the frequency with which people move homes, or even countries. Also, says Milan-based designer Alessandro Loschiavo (www.aled.it), who with colleague Michele Russo created a table that can be taken apart in minutes, the trend taps into a desire for lighter, easier pieces. 'People love to move their furniture from a room to another, from indoors to outdoors and from one house to another,' he says.

His WaTable, essentially a circular acrylic top on a translucent container base that can be filled with 12 litres of water, meets these criteria. A carbon-fibre tube connects the top and bottom and, dismantled, the separate pieces allow for easy transporting. 'It has been conceived for areas straddling the indoor-outdoor border, whether at home [porticos, terraces and patios] or for temporary or seasonal public settings,' says Loschiavo. The WaTable was launched at the end of December, and production negotiations are under way.

Jumping on the bandwagon, Finnish company Artek (www.artek.fi) last year introduced its Quick Ship/Carry Away programme, which allows its more popular items - stools, coat racks, chairs - to be dismantled and placed in flat boxes with handles and carried out of the store. Online retailers such as Unica Home (unicahome.com) carry the pieces, which range from US$300 to US$500 and come in traditional birch veneer as well as black or red linoleum or white laminate.

Flat-pack furniture's affordability is something else that can no longer be taken for granted. Dutch designer Charlotte van den Brand's Pattern Cabinet (www.lots-work.com) can be custom ordered for a cool Euro14,000 (HK$150,000). Van den Brand developed the cabinet, which can come apart and be put back together in minutes, as part of a graduation project in 2009 for her design school, Design Academy Eindhoven.

'I became inspired during my travels and volunteer work in Africa by the rhythmic patterns in textiles, wall paintings and body decorations,' she says. Those references can be seen in the Pattern Cabinet, which is constructed out of a series of four parts in walnut and wenge wood that fall into place like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. 'In its closed state, it is a sideboard with a typical African pattern,' she says. 'Pull the loose elements upwards and you create a much larger cabinet with additional space and new patterns.'