The programme, which was previously won by Central Saint Martins’ MA student Cécile Maïa Pujol for her Lady B armchair, gives students the opportunity to design and prototype functional, full-scale seating devices with the winning project being manufactured by the renowned French design brand. Roche Bobois is committed to giving young designers the opportunity for exposure at the outset of their careers. Since 2009, the brand has organised a design competition to take place in a new country every two years, with the intention of discovering promising young talent from all over the world. This year, as part of its fifth edition, Roche Bobois invited 16 teams of two students from Parsons’ MFA Industrial Design and BFA Product Design programmes to take up the challenge of designing and prototyping functional, full-scale furniture driven by the theme “Seating for Eating”. Nicolas Roche, Creative Director, presented Roche Bobois’ design brief to students at their Madison Avenue showroom at the end of August. Commenting on the collaboration, Nicolas remarked: “It is absolutely wonderful for Roche Bobois to have the opportunity to work with Parsons, a school known worldwide for the quality of its teaching and the talent of its students. We expect the designing force of Parsons will enrich our brand with its creativity and innovation.”
As a result, two first place winners and one second place winner were selected.
above: Cairn
The “Cairn” stone chair designed by Weiran Chen and George Plionis of Parsons’ MFA Industrial Design programme won first place alongside the “Plus One” extendable chair designed by Lorraine Chen and Po Yuan Wang of Parsons’ BFA Product Design programme. Second place was awarded to Liujingzi Jiang and Lee Chi-Hao of Parsons’ MFA Industrial Design programme for the “Asy” yellow asymmetrical chair. Rather than award first through third place as originally planned, the judges decided on two first place winners as each of the projects best addressed different aspects of the original brief and key judging criteria.
above: 2 in 1
above: Asy
All three winning projects will be prototyped in Europe and presented during Roche Bobois’ internal Spring 2018 Market conference - and potentially manufactured for retail in Roche Bobois’ worldwide network as part of the brand’s Autumn-Winter 2018 Collection. All 16 designs will also be featured in an exhibition during NYCxDesign Week (11-23 May 2018) in the brand’s Madison Avenue flagship showroom.