Jong Ha Choi: From 2D to 3D

Can an image turn into 3-dimensional piece of furniture and vice versa? This was the original question designer Jong Ha Choi set for De-Dimension, a collection of stools and small tables that transform from a folded 2-dimensional image to a 3-dimensional, usable pieces of furniture.

Starting point of the collection for the Eindhoven-based designer was notions of developing forms of image, and how image changes from photography and film towards virtual reality. With the collection, he questions image’s confinement to a flat surface.

“I was interested in the ways we see images from a flat screen,” says the designer. “If we saw an image of a chair, we can directly understand that it is a chair. Even though an image shows only one side of the object, we can still imagine the shape of it, and sometimes even how it is constructed.”

“Physically, however, the chair on the screen has different dimensions to a chair we use in 3-dimensional space. I was thinking that if the essence of both 2D and 3D chairs are the same, it would be possible to transit one to another.”

De-Dimension is Jong Ha Choi’s graduation project from the Master department Contextual Design at Design Academy Eindhoven. The collection is made of aluminium, steel and stainless steel, and folds from flat to 3D with carefully considered folding mechanism.

“At first, I thought making the mechanism would be difficult,” Choi reveals. “It took a long time to figure out the mechanism, but after making some models out of paper and plastic I started to think it could be possible. Because the paper model worked, I thought that changing the material to metal would make the furniture strong enough to function as a piece of furniture. Now I’m planning on testing the mechanism with the other materials and various shapes.” •