KEIJI ASHIZAWA DESIGN

A shelf made with a combination of bent steel plates that you can assemble by yourself. The production process is quite simple. We cut, drill, or perforate a thin sheet of steel, 1.6 mm thick, with a laser.

At first, we were surprised at how easily a sheet of steel could be bent along a perforated line, just like Origami, the traditional Japanese paper craft. We began to think of the perforated line when bent as a ‘live hinge’.

We have confirmed that if it’s not bent repeatedly, the live hinge performs with sufficient strength. By attaching the parts together made out of the same sheet of aluminium rivets. Most FPS use steel sheet of 919 mm 1829 mm, which is the most common size one can buy. The perforated steel sheet is a fun-to-see object in itself. One would enjoy its ornamental quality even before it is transformed into a product.

What we have found in FPS is a process of design which begins by scrutinising the properties of a material, and the technology it requires to take advantage of such properties. We are expecting that this process would result in many different adaptations.

The idea of flat packing was established by super robot in 2002.