The design was commissioned by a creative agency (Cheil Hong Kong) for their use in an office conference room. Therefore the piece should be playful and innovative to reflect the creative agency’s brand values. The inspiration of the table came from the wiggly French Curves and jigsaw puzzle cuts!
Our main intention was to break free from the traditional preconceived idea of what a corporate conference table should be like. Therefore we created a set of wiggly table shapes that are carefully designed to be sculptural while practical. Its re-configurable flexibility creates surprises, and break down the otherwise strict atmosphere of corporate conference room.The three parts of the table can be reconfigured for a variety of overall seating arrangements for small cluster meetings to large meetings. Bean Buro wanted to achieve a more relaxed setting to encourage users’ creative thoughts during meetings.
The table shape was digitally designed using CAD and 3D modeling software, where each curve is determined as a result of various users seating arrangements simulations. Although the curves of this design look random, a lot of thought has been put into the geometries. Indeed, these tables are like a jigsaw and can be playfully re-arranged into four configurations to adapt to different functions. To make these configurations easy, Bean Buro designed visual colour edge bands at the male and female curves provide easy understanding of how the parts should come together.
This project is part of a wider agenda of the object design research of the company, with clear research objectives of investigating the spatial effects on the social relationships caused by a furniture installation in a certain environment. It also calls for a break down of strict traditions between user and object relationships, through the use of simple and subtle changes to the form of furniture.
