Inspired by the desire to create personal identity from ubiquitous uniformity, design student Kenyon Yeh (aka Wiyono Sutjipto) hacked IKEA’s inexpensive (£20 / $33) RAST 3-drawer chest of drawers apart and then reassembled the raw materials into four new pieces of furniture in a collection he calls UNIKEA. Says Yeh,

I have assembled the pieces from a standard IKEA flat pack without following the instructions …  Instead, I have simply composed the kits into customized furniture to suit my personal preference, adding some new details along the way.

More about Yeh’s background and inspiration as well as individual pictures of all four pieces in the collection, descriptions, prices and how to place an order after the jump!

Yeh recieved his BA in Industrial Design from Tunghai University in Taiwan in 2007 and then began a Masters program in Design (Product + Space) at Kingston University in London in 2008. A project for Yeh’s Master’s degree, UNIKEA was selected for exhibition at the MA (Master of Architecture) Graduation show at Bargehouse in October 2009.

KENN

KENN features three major quadrilateral shapes and a triangular niche created by the intersection of the three 4-sided parts of this piece. Two red feet support one end, while the other side rests on the angled corner of the rightmost rhomboid. KENN will sell for £ 180.

BRIA

BRIA features an “amalgamation of old detailed English chair leg which I did from resin casting,” in electric blue. Ideal for stacks of books, BRIA is a unique take on the common bookcase. BRIA will sell for £200.

DALT

Not your Grandpa’s end table, DALT embeds a reading lamp (IKEA’s BASISK glass lamp shade) into the construction, making this piece multi-functional. I do wish this side table had a horizontal top surface on which to place a beverage, but that aside (pun intended), this is an interesting new take on the traditional lamp table. Green legs support the vaguely ladder-esque right side of the piece which will sell for £ 240.

LOPA

Four black legs hold aloft LOPA, a vertical unit which vaguely resembles a pant-wearing robot. In my opinion the most interesting of the UNIKEA series, LOPA features a top portion which appears to ‘float’ above the bifurcated bottom section – the ‘pants’. LOPA will sell for £ 220.

Buy UNIKEA

Yeh will be selling his pieces online via his website: iamkenyon beginning in March 2010. Each piece will be made to order with prices ranging from £180 to £240. Orders have already starting coming in! The real question is, will you have to put them together yourself?

If you contact Kenyon to place an order, please tell him IKEAFANS sent you!

Images by Kenyon Yeh

Tags: IKEA Hack, IKEA hacks, Kenyon Yeh, RAST, UNIKEA

This entry was posted on Friday, November 27th, 2009 at 11:41 PM by Susan and is filed under IKEA Furniture, IKEA hacks, Member Projects. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.