DI: What is the main principle, idea and inspiration behind your design?
: As we all known, the concrete public seat is huge and heavy, which makes it difficult to be transported and formed.
DI: What has been your main focus in designing this work? Especially what did you want to achieve?
: We were trying to solve this problem by disassembling. We disassemble the heavy concrete public seat into many L-shape structures.The advantages are as follows: batch production,low cost of production,convenient to be transport.
DI: What are your future plans for this award winning design?
: We hope to find a suitable factory to follow up production and put into market.
DI: How long did it take you to design this particular concept?
: The product is completed in June 2014. It takes us four months.
DI: Why did you design this particular concept? Was this design commissioned or did you decide to pursuit an inspiration?
: We are always looking for a possibility to produce concrete public seating which is not only quality production, but also convenient to be transported.
DI: Is your design being produced or used by another company, or do you plan to sell or lease the production rights or do you intent to produce your work yourself?
: We plan to sell or lease the production rights.
DI: What made you design this particular type of work?
: To me, design is my interest, doing design is just like a game.
DI: Where there any other designs and/or designers that helped the influence the design of your work?
: Our team finished this design together by experiments and communicating with each other.
DI: Who is the target customer for his design?
: The L-shape concrete public seat is suitable fordisplaying inuniversity campus and public gardens and so on, which creates Interactive space for sever people to communicate with each other.
DI: What sets this design apart from other similar or resembling concepts?
: As public seating, it has following advantages: convenient to be transported, and low cost of production.
DI: How did you come up with the name for this design? What does it mean?
: The name was given based on the form and materials of itself.
DI: Which design tools did you use when you were working on this project?
: Wooden mold, cutting tools of wood and metal.
DI: What is the most unique aspect of your design?
: The design isunique because we create the L-shape structure. So we manage to disassemble the whole heavy concrete public seat into many L-shape structures. The L-shape structures are easy to be transported and formed. What’s more, the concrete material combines with nature and the pursuit for appealing design brings the product a lot of happiness. In the meantime, the L-shape structure allows itself to be modified and reformed to produce various types of combination, which adapts different size of fields and satisfies multiple demands of usage.As a whole, the public seat is full of sense of rhythm.
DI: Who did you collaborate with for this design? Did you work with people with technical / specialized skills?
: The members of our team are teachers and students of department of Industrial Design, we finished this design together by experiments and communications.
DI: What is the role of technology in this particular design?
: To connect several units into one seating.
DI: Is your design influenced by data or analytical research in any way? What kind of research did you conduct for making this design?
: We find most convenient, fast and low cost way to making outdoor seating through experiments of concrete materials.
DI: What are some of the challenges you faced during the design/realization of your concept?
: In order to make it delicate and be easy to be transported and formed, the L-shape structure is the thinner the better. So it is a big challenge for its forming because the L-shape structure is made by concrete. We tried hard to reduce its thickness from 10cm to 7cm first, and then from 7cm to 5cm, which took a lot of time and effort. Moreover, the size and amount of reserved holes have a significant impact on the forming and turning model of the L-shape structure.We made the turning model success by puttingPVC tubes into the holes in the formwork, which ensure that the formwork can be easily removedand is in good condition.
DI: How did you decide to submit your design to an international design competition?
: We wanted to make a better broadcast for this design, and look for more possibility to put it into market.
DI: What did you learn or how did you improve yourself during the designing of this work?
: Design is a practical lesson. Practice can take me more possibilities of thoughts and actions.
DI: Any other things you would like to cover that have not been covered in these questions?
: The product has not been put on the market, but we are confident to make the product spread all over the university campus and public gardens and so on because of its modern style and bargain price.