PORT FOLIO LINGLING CHEN
Selected work from 2010 to 2013
Lingling Chen was majoring in Furniture Design at Savannah College of Art and Design and just received her MA degree in the spring of 2013. She recently participated in a sponsored class with Hui Sen Furniture, during with 16 of her designs were chosen as promising products to be further developed. Lingling has also taken courses in industrial design and jewelry design to expand her experience. When not doing design, she spends her time on her culinary skills.
Lingling Chen Furniture Design
912-358-7682 linglingchendesign@gmail.com
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Contents Gap Chair Living-room Collection Tang Chair Kaleidoscope Table Value Clock Flat Lamp Illusion Vessel Contrasting Jewelry Blooming Umbrella Door Design Reforest
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Gap Chair 2011 Gap Chair was designed to address a lack of storage for personal items in fast food restaurants in China. In order to accommodate more guests, many restaurants crowd customers together at small tables, which do not have room for coats or bags. This arrangement is not convenient for customers, who are forced to hold their stuff on their
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laps or tuck them behind their backs. This project provides a solution to this problem by providing a small storage space in the seat itself. Gap Chair expands the connection between seat and back, creating a void into which items can be stored. This provides a private, secure place to hold valuables without increasing the footprint of the chair.
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Living-room collection 2013 Ming and Qing furniture represents the pinnacle of traditional Chinese furniture making. The mortise-and-tenon joint is a key feature from this era and enabled the construction of strong joints that has lasted for hundreds of years. Because this type of traditional joinery requires relatively high handicraft techniques, they don’t fit into modern mass production processes. As a result, they have been simplified or even phased out over time. If this continues, less and less people will know about these important components of traditional Chinese material culture. As a Chi-
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nese furniture designer, I believe it is my responsibility to promote awareness of traditional joinery among the public. In order to help people understand the essence and value of these joints, I will highlight their forms with different materials. Based on my previous work, I think transparent plastic is the best way to show the joints which are usually hidden. In revealing these unique construction techniques, I believe people will recognize the importance of traditional Chinese furniture and craft, see how talented our ancestors were, and pass this appreciation down to new generations.
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Tang Chair 2010 Finalist Prize in “Lu Ban Cup� Design Competition Tang Chair is inspired by the traditional architecture of the Tang Dynasty. The wooden architecture of this era is the earliest that still exists in China today. Unfortunately, there is no Tang-era furniture left. To develop a new collection inspired by this period, I selected iconic architectural elements such as wooden brackets, ceramic tile rosettes, and patterns from roof beams and applied them to a chair.
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ISSUE XYZ EXHIBITION January 25- 26, 2013 2427 Desoto Ave. Savannah, Georgia 31401
Title A NEW EYE, A NEW WORLD Materials Acrylic, cardboard, wood veneer Artist Statement Design is my teacher; it changes the way I look at life and invites me to pay attention to the unseen or unnoticed. Design is my tool; I hope to use design to create positive change in the world. Project Description As a design student, I have learned to see objects from a different perspective. This project picks up on that shifting viewpoint to highlight possibilities others might overlook. Using the shapes of common home furnishings, my viewing machine presents a shifting visual display. When seen through the kaleidoscope, the variety of these shapes become clear and reveal the ever-changing or hidden possibilities that exist in the eye of a designer.
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Value Clock 2011 The word “value� is conventionally defined as relative worth, merit, or importance. It can also mean the relative lightness or darkness of color in an image. This word suits my design well because the hour and minutes hands on the clock face are represented by two fading circles. The darkest value on the circle represents the exact time.
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Flat Lamp 2011 Flat lamp is designed for convenient packaging . When folded, it is a thin, flat piece. When unfolded, it easily convert to a lamp. The design accommodates two different material options. Wood for a classic feel and plastic for a sleek contemporary aesthetic.
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Illusion Vessel 2012 This project began with a traditional Chinese pattern called cracked ice, primarily used in window lattice. Here, it is used to define internal spaces of the vessel. Since
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the number of cut patterns gradually increases as sheets are stacked, the vessel presents distinctly different visual effects when viewed from different angles.
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Contrasting Jewelry 2012 People often think of precious metals when they think of jewelry. As a furniture design student, I wanted to include wood as a contrasting element in my jewelry design. My Contrasting Jewelry collection embodies this idea through
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the juxtaposition pewter and walnut. When shown together, these materials create pieces that are both hard and soft, warm and cold, shiny and dark. The finished pieces are made of laser-cut wood and hand-cast metal.
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Blooming Umbrella 2012 The traditional umbrella is known for its distinct and unique ability to collapse. The umbrella’s fundamental design has not changed much since the mid-nineteenth century. My
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Blooming Umbrella takes the concept of a collapsible device and update it in a new and contemporary design.
Air veins for structure support
Pump
Magnetic Material
Metal Track
The umbrella is opened and closed in a hybrid process that requires the user to physically flip the canopy up, activating a small pump inside the handle which automatically inflates the canopy. Magnetic strips on the
Pivot Point
inner edges of the canopy enable a sealed connections when the canopy is fully inflated. This magnetic section also provides additional structural support, which protects users from heavier wind and rain.
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I
II Late! Late!
III I need a new door. It would be...
Where is my key?
Key
08:15 IIII
The new door has an unique handle system. It can be move in and out easily .
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Mails
V When go out, get
VI When come back, get mails from handle box easily.
keys from the handle and push it to the other side.
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Door Design 2010 This multi-functional door combines the function of a mailbox and key holder in its handle, helping the user declutter their environment and avoid accidentally leaving keys at home.
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Reforest 2012 Reforest was a group project conducted over a period of ten weeks with eight classmates to develop a single night culinary experience for 20 guests. We worked with a local restaurant called Sapphire Grill to redecorate their dinning environment. We worked together on research and ideation of the theme and then divided into several groups to work on different projects. My
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partner and I were responsible for the wall installation. We came up with the idea of rhythm as expressed in a forest canopy. We laser cut sheets of Ÿ� MDF, into which 1,500 PVC pipes of various heights and diameters were installed. Each pipe was painted in a shade of brown, creating a complex, undulating pattern that evokes the sense of movement in the forest canopy.
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KEEP in TOUCH.
Lingling Chen Furniture Design 912-358-7682 www.linglingchendesign.com