Look what we made: East-West furniture design project produces one-of-a-kind pieces

British furniture designers teamed up with Hong Kong design professionals from a variety of disciplines to create unique furniture pieces

Their designs, including a multifunctional chair, movable storage, and a Zen-influenced low table with pull-out seats, are unveiled in Hong Kong this week

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A portable folding stool, by architect Keith Griffiths of Aedas and Freshwest’s Marcus Beck and Simon Macro, is among the collaborative furniture designs that resulted from Project HK-UK. Photo: Paul Yeung

Published: 3:15pm, 3 Dec 2019Updated: 8:04pm, 3 Dec 2019

Samuel Chan is a furniture designer with one foot in the West and the other in the East. Born in Hong Kong and educated in London – where Chan’s studio, Joined + Jointed, is based – he divides his time between projects in both regions.

That led him to wonder what would happen if creative people from East and West worked together as equals on something. That thought led to Project HK-UK, a collaboration between Hong Kong and British designers that produced six original furniture designs.

The pieces will be launched this week (December 5-7) at DesignInspire, an exhibition of design and innovation at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai.

Chan and 11 invited designers and design studios took part in the project; they paired off in six East-West teams to create, as he puts it, “a unique piece of furniture that is conceptually stimulating, beautiful, and functional”.

The 25/7 chair, “a chair you could nap on, eat in, or relax on”, by fashion designer Johanna Ho, of Phvlo, and Briton Lucy Kurrein. Photo: Paul Yeung

While all the British participants are furniture designers, the Hong Kong designers work in a variety of disciplines: fashion, jewellery, automobile and typeface design, architecture, and visual communication. Why? “As designers, we can all get stuck in our own field and our own ways of thinking,” Chan says.