ÉCAL student Ilseop Yoon used a sheet of moulded aluminium to create the pleated seat and backrest of this chair.
Yoon, a student on the Master Product Design course at the Swiss school, looked to both architecture and fashion when developing the design for his Pleats Chair.

He likens the pleated form to corrugated roofing panels. But he also took inspiration from the "strong structure and beautiful aesthetic" of the famous pleated garments of Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake.
"Corrugated structure is widely used in architecture and fashion in terms of the strong structure and the beautiful aesthetics," said the designer, who originates from South Korea. "The Pleats Chair highlights both aspects."

The chair is made from a single sheet of aluminium, chosen because it is both rigid and lightweight.
Yoon created the pleats using a custom-made wooden mould, with one part embossed and one part debossed.
He created a digital 3D model of the chair to calculate the shape and size of the seat, then produced a mould from a CNC machine. This was used to shape the pleated aluminium and create the body of the chair.

Yoon sees the process as similar to the way that fabrics are pleated in fashion manufacturing, through the used of applied pressure.
The thin shell of the body can stay rigid to sit on, while maintaining a delicate aesthetic," said Yoon.

According to the designer, another of the chair's impressive qualities is its potentia...