We had the distinct pleasure to interview award winning designer Mate Meszaros about their original and creative Folding Stool design work. Mate Meszaros is an award-winning industrial designer, that makes our world a better place with their original folding stool works.
Mate Meszaros ("MM") answered Design Interview ("DI") questions about their award-winning work Tatamu Folding Stool. Interview questions prepared by Frank Scott.
MM : Small apartments, narrow offices, tiny shops; urban space is a vanishing, precious commodity. By 2050 two thirds of the earth’s population will live in cities. We have to fit increasingly more activities in a shrinking physical space. The main inspiration behind Tatamu are mobile and creative people like us, whose ideas are bigger than their room. We also found that moving in and out of tiny city apartments often involves the disposal of old furniture, since transportation is very costly; we need light, deployable, reusable furniture that is a joy to use.
MM : When we started designing the Tatamu stool, we aimed to create furniture that combines robustness with an ultra-thin and lightweight material, while being intuitive to use. It takes only one twisting movement to deploy the chair. We wanted to keep the design as simple as possible, so there are only two materials: wood and fabric. The hinges made of specially manufactured durable fabric keep it light weight, while the wooden origami faces provide stability. Once pressure is applied to it, the stool only gets stronger as the faces lock in together in perfect mechanical balance.
MM : The Tatamu stool is the first furniture in a series of furniture answering to people needs with limited spaces.
MM : The design of the Tatamu Stool started in June 2019 with paper models and 3d modelling and we finalized the last prototype in January 2020.
MM : Our personal inspiration to design the Tatamu stool came from living, working and socializing in tiny, vibrant, multi-functional spaces; our dream is to distill Tokyo urban lifestyle into everyday, functional and beautiful furniture. Furniture that adapts to, reacts to and interacts with our increasingly mobile lives.
MM : Our furniture is being manufactured by Penfold - a traditional Japanese furniture manufacturer. We intend to sell our furniture ourselves.
MM : The Tatamu Stool is using unique solutions in its details, these joints can be used in the future for later designs. The folded form of the chair is getting more stable as more pressure is applied to it, so we would like to investigate the usage of this mechanism in construction technologies, as well. When relocating, TATAMU moves with you; reducing the cost, time and stress of moving out. Over 258 million tons of furniture end up in landfills every year, only in the United States.
MM : Tatamu means folding, putting away in Japanese, describing our idea perfectly.
MM : Besides sketches and physical models, we used Grasshopper and Rhino to simulate the working mechanism of the stool.
MM : The Tatamu stool will fold down to fit anywhere, and its triangular shape with only 4cm thickness allows it to fit even in the narrowest of apartment arrangements when deployed.
MM : We always design our furniture together and we are always looking for different craftsmen and other creative thinkers to cooperate.
MM : We used Grasshopper to simulate the working mechanism of the stool; the main load bearing axes have to work as hinges as well, so our research objective was to determine how to reach a stable state while retaining flexibility. The folded form of the chair is getting more stable as more pressure is applied to it, so we would like to investigate the usage of this mechanism in construction technologies, as well.
MM : The greatest challenge throughout the design and research process, was to find a balance between structural strength and foldability. Modelling the mechanism of the chair in 3D has limited capabilities, so we had to work closely with the manufacturer in order to reach the desired result. After many detail tests and five distinct functional prototypes, we could manage to make the foldable stool easily operable, while retaining its strength.
