‘I love to make things with my hands,’ says Jaebeom Jeong. ‘It is attractive to make new stuff that is nowhere in the world. I feel alive when I work.’ And when Jeong talks about creating things that don’t exist anywhere else, he means it. We love his Grid Chair, which looks uncannily – even slightly eerily - like a computer render of a chair, but is, in fact three-dimensional and real, inspired as it is by scaffolding and industrial structures – and the latter of which perhaps explains the fact that it’s already graced the front cover of the Architect’s Journal. But there’s plenty more innovative ideas where that came from; Jeong has also produced the Cartrider, an ingenious hybrid of a bicycle and shopping trolley, perfect, one assumes, for last minute supermarket dashes. ‘I aim to design products that stimulate positive interaction between product and user. I was especially attracted by chair design because the chair is an effective object to communicate immediately with people,’ he explains. He likens chair design to architecture, and as such, says that he finds inspiration in the ‘impressive surfaces’ of old buildings. Partly for that reason, he plans to remain in Seoul: ‘It is a good place to get inspiration because there are many traditional buildings and natural places preserved. But I do hope that I will show my work all over the world.’ We’ll second that hope.
Most influenced by:
I like Marcel Duchamp. He is a challenging, innovative artist, I like his intelligence. I hope to be a clever designer like Tokujin Yoshioka and Konstantin Grcic.
INFORMATION
INTERIORS
School
Hongik University, Seoul
Graduated
2009
