Ukrainian designer Yuriy Tsegla launched the BiDi chair project on Kickstarter — a minimalist plywood chair that looks like a flat sheet when folded, and in a few movements turns into full-fledged furniture. The campaign is aimed at an international audience and tests the demand for Ukrainian object design in the compact furniture segment.
Ukrainian designer Yuriy Tsegla launched the BiDi chair project on Kickstarter — a minimalist plywood chair that looks like a flat sheet when folded, and in a few movements turns into full-fledged furniture. The campaign is aimed at an international audience and tests the demand for Ukrainian object design in the compact furniture segment.
According to the project description on Kickstarter, BiDi stands for «bi-dimensional» and is conceived as an object that literally goes from a two-dimensional state to a three-dimensional one. When folded, it is an almost flat «sheet» that can be leaned against a wall or hidden behind a closet, and when unfolded, it is a full-sized chair with non-standard geometry. The author emphasizes minimalism, simple mechanics, and the fact that furniture does not take up space when not in use.
The project states that the main material is plywood with various finishing options: from a natural surface with an oil-wax coating to white or dark brown laminated plywood. Seat cushions are also provided, which can be ordered as a set, so that the chair is not only spectacular in shape, but also comfortable in daily use. Thus, BiDi is positioned as a design object at the junction of an art object and functional furniture.
Yuriy Tsegla himself emphasizes on the campaign page that he works from Kyiv and the region where a full-scale war is ongoing. This is directly stated in the block about risks: logistics, production and deadlines depend not only on the usual Kickstarter factors, but also on the security situation. Despite this, the author chooses the «all or nothing» model, that is, he will receive money for production only if the entire declared amount is successfully collected, like most serious hardware projects on the platform.
BiDi chair is in the Product Design category alongside global projects, and the campaign location is marked as Kyiv, Ukraine. For the Ukrainian market, this is another example of local design going beyond Etsy and Instagram and trying its hand at large crowdfunding platforms, where it competes for the attention of backers from all over the world. The success of such campaigns often opens the door for authors to offline distribution, collaborations with furniture brands, and small-scale production for export.
At the time of publication, the BiDi chair Kickstarter campaign has raised $1,377 of its $5,000 goal from seven backers, with 23 days left to go. The basic BiDi Chair costs $239, the BiDi Chair with cushions is priced at $299, and the set of two chairs with cushions (2x BiDi Chair + cushions) is priced at $560. There are also special editions with four chairs.
In the case of BiDi, the Ukrainian designer offers his own interpretation: not just another IKEA-style flat-pack, but a chair whose transformation becomes the main feature and part of the user experience. If the campaign gathers enough support, it will be an indicator that the Kickstarter audience is willing to pay not only for function, but also for the history and design created in a warring country.
Previously, dev.ua wrote about how famous Ukrainian esports player Oleksiy «White-Ra» Krupnyk, who played StarCraft: Brood War and StarCraft II and ended his career in 2014, is going to publish an autobiographical book about his career. To do this, he opened a fundraising campaign on Kickstarter.
