Strong, durable and economical, hydraulic cement concrete is the most widely used construction material of the modern era. It is so commonly employed in the construction of buildings, dams and roads that people rarely give it a second look. Designer Sean Yu (游聲堯), however, is turning heads by employing the material in novel ways. Rather than designing architectural structures, Yu, 31, uses the concrete to create rings, pens, watches and other accessories in his workshop, 22 Design Studio, in Taipei City. “I live and work in the city,” he says. “For me, concrete imparts a cold, but somehow warm feeling and reflects the concept of life in a concrete jungle.”
After graduating from one of Taipei’s top senior high schools, Yu did well enough on his university entrance examination to gain admission to the Department of Geography at prestigious National Taiwan University. Over the course of his first semester, however, he found that he was not at all interested in geography. He took another university entrance examination the next year and entered the Department of Industrial Design at National Cheng Kung University in Tainan City, southern Taiwan. “Actually, I wasn’t sure what industrial design was all about at the time,” Yu says. “But it seemed like it was a lot more fun than geography.”
Yu spent four pleasant years at Cheng Kung, but began to realize that while most of his classmates desired to become an industrial designer for a large company, he wanted to operate a workshop. He discussed his preference with his parents, and, upon receiving their permission, founded 22 Design Studio. Yu explains that “22” came from a discussion with classmates when they were university students. “We had the idea of setting up a workshop and establishing a design brand name when we turned 22 and graduated from university,” he says. Yu and Cheng Yi-ting (鄭伊婷), a university classmate who became a girlfriend and then his wife, founded the studio in 2005. At that stage, however, it was a studio in name only, as Cheng was working for a Tainan design company and Yu was about to depart for his compulsory military service.
By the fall of 2006, Yu had fulfilled his obligation to the military and made a trip to Japan, where he saw exposed concrete structures designed by Tadao Ando, a Japanese architect known for emphasizing empty space and simplicity. “It was the first time I took a closer look at this construction material,” Yu says. “The gray surface was simple, clean and smooth, but it had such a unique character and temperament that I couldn’t take my eyes off it.”
Yu says his responsibility as a designer is not to persuade viewers of the brilliance of his works, but rather to demonstrate the diversity of ideas. (Photo by Huang Chung-hsin)
Inspired, Yu began to consider using the material for purposes other than building architectural structures. What he came up with was the idea of creating jewelry. “I like rings, earrings, that kind of thing,” he says. “But the ones I saw always seemed to be missing something, so I decided to make my own. Besides, I thought it’d be fun to explore the other possibilities of a material that was exclusively used for construction.”
After returning to Taiwan, Yu bought some cement and started experimenting in his apartment in Xindian District, New Taipei City. In the beginning, he thought creating designs from concrete would be as easy as mixing water and cement. He also believed there was a good chance to turn a profit, as the raw material was cheap.
After more than a few failures, however, Yu realized that making jewelry from concrete was much more complicated than he had anticipated, as his products were either too brittle or would not hold together at all. “You’ve got to get every detail right—how much water to use, how much cement, how to stir the mixture to avoid air bubbles that turn into pits and holes—to come up with a concrete ring,” he says. To learn such details, Yu began talking to architects, cement suppliers and masons, but those discussions did not help him much. “The problem was that these professionals know how to mix concrete for construction projects, but they have no idea how to mix concrete for rings,” he says.
So Yu returned to his “lab,” continued experimenting and finally came up with his first successful batch of rings in early 2007. He was not sure what to do next, however, as his design education had not taught him much about marketing. In the end, he and Cheng started their business on a cold winter evening on a sidewalk in front of an Eslite Bookstore in eastern Taipei, where they displayed each ring in special boxes she had designed. “The gray rings didn’t look particularly attractive under the dim streetlights, and having to run from the cops when they came by from time to time to drive away illegal roadside vendors didn’t really help,” Yu recalls. “That first evening, we didn’t sell anything.”
A stainless steel inner ring prevents allergic reactions that could result from the prolonged contact of skin with concrete. (Photo by Huang Chung-hsin)
Things did not get better during the next several evenings. Just when Yu and Cheng were about to give up, however, they learned that their concrete rings had been selected for inclusion in Eslite’s creative market, which encourages designers to “show your creativity in a briefcase.” Admittance to the market meant the couple could display their wares twice each month, this time legally, in a suitcase on the sidewalk in front of Eslite’s flagship store on Taipei’s Dunhua South Road.
Before displaying their wares at the market, Yu and Cheng sought the advice of Wang Shih-chun (王士俊), his university professor. Wang spoke encouragingly about the creativity shown by the rings, but suggested that the couple include an inner metal ring in the design to add value and avoid the possibility of an allergic reaction that could result from the prolonged contact of skin with concrete. “We started contacting metal factories to order some inner rings for the concrete rings we’d already made,” Yu says. “But we found out that the size of the inner rings we needed was unusual, which meant we’d have to have them custom made. That was a problem, as that the minimum order for custom-made rings was 1 ton.” As they required nowhere near that quantity, Yu and Cheng decided to buy stainless steel inner rings in standard sizes and use them as a base upon which to shape new concrete outer rings.
Business was good at the creative market, as the couple found they could sell a few dozen rings each day there at the price of NT$500 (US$17) apiece. “We had some positive customer responses,” he says. “More importantly, the sales gave me a way to show my parents that the whole idea was workable. They agreed and let me continue.”
Selling rings two days a month at the creative market, however, was not enough to keep a business going. At the market, they found that most of their sales went to architects who had an affection for concrete or designers who were willing to try new things. “That’s basically our entire market in Taiwan, and it seemed too small even for our tiny company to survive,” Yu says.
Yu started thinking about the design fairs he had attended overseas, which led him to believe that there might be more sales opportunities abroad. In 2007, 22 Design Studio participated in Designboom Mart Tokyo, its first international show. Since then, the studio has displayed its wares at shows in cities including Eindhoven, the Netherlands; Frankfurt, Germany; London and New York. At the fairs, Yu’s innovative use of concrete has drawn the interest of foreign buyers as well as media coverage.
The 4th Dimension watch extends the creative concept of 22 Design Studio’s popular 4th Dimension table and wall clocks. (Photo courtesy of 22 Design Studio)
Light and Shadow
During its first four years of production, 22 Design Studio focused on jewelry and came up with about a dozen ring and earring designs, each of which was created according to a distinctive concept. The seven-sided 7 DAYS Ring, for example, represents the seven days of the week, while the Rock ring focuses on the interplay between light and shadow. The Module and Tatami rings follow the concepts and characteristics of Ando’s concrete buildings by emphasizing simple geometry and leaving the holes left by concrete formwork intact.
Instead of considering other materials, Yu became more devoted to the use of concrete. “What’s interesting about these rings is that concrete is a material that changes over time,” Yu says. “They become darker and smoother every day, leaving traces of time.”
While Yu was pleased with the temporal qualities of his concrete rings, he continued trying to improve his formula. He spent a lot of time mixing cement and water with other ingredients to make it stronger. “The earlier versions would crack if you knocked them off a desk, but now they’re quite shockproof,” he says, tossing a ring onto the concrete floor, where it comes to rest undamaged. Improving the formula has also helped lift the success rate of the production process from 40 to 80 percent.
After spending a few years doing nothing but designing and making concrete rings, however, Yu began to feel a bit bored. In 2010, he left the operation of 22 Design Studio to a partner who had joined the company in 2008 and took an 11-month “sabbatical” in London. Cheng had been in London since 2008 and was studying product design at the Royal College of Art. While Cheng was at the school, Yu spent his time taking language courses and visiting museums and galleries.
Taking a sabbatical helped expand Yu’s design horizons. “Many international brands like Mont Blanc and Georg Jenson have diversified their product lines instead of sticking to their original writing instruments and silverware,” he says. “So I asked myself, ‘Why can’t I use concrete on designs other than personal accessories?’”
The Tangram City Sculpture Puzzle draw inspiration from Japanese architect Tadao Ando’s exposed concrete structures. (Photo courtesy of 22 Design Studio)
After Yu returned to Taiwan in 2010, the first non-jewelry designs he came up with were concrete sketching pencils and rollerball pens. The ergonomic, stylish and substantial writing instruments sold well. His next design, a wall clock comprising little more than a concrete board with hands, however, did not prove particularly popular in the market. “We don’t exactly know why,” Yu says. “Maybe people just don’t want to hang a block of concrete on their walls,” he says with a smile.
The studio’s 4th Dimension Clock was a different story. The clock has a dial shaped like a spiral staircase, upon which the hands go down and up continuously as time goes by. The design, which plays with light and shadow, time and space, has been well received by the market and was even covered by the New York Times in August 2011. Yu later modified the design by turning it into a table clock, which has also become one of the studio’s more popular creations, as well as a wristwatch with a copper crown, spiral-staircase concrete dial and stainless steel case. One of his current experiments is adding dye to give color to the concrete that forms the table clock’s dial.
Yu’s latest design, The Tangram City Sculpture Puzzle, was inspired by Ando’s architecture and Tangram, an ancient Chinese game. Instead of comprising seven flat pieces of different shapes, Yu’s puzzle consists of seven miniature city landscapes: an apartment, factory, house, museum, office building, park and warehouse. The concrete puzzle also acts as a decorative object.
On its journey from ring to Tangram, 22 Design Studio has experienced more than a few bumps along the concrete road. Looking back, Yu says many of those problems were caused by a lack of knowledge and experience. “Designers usually don’t know much about marketing strategy, sales channels, company finance and management, since they’re usually not taught those subjects in university design departments,” he says. “Not knowing about those things is fine if you’re working in a design department of a big company, but it’s going to hurt you if you’re running your own business.”
Yu designed the Twist ring to show the interrelatedness of complexity and simplicity, as well as of tranquility and excitement. (Photo courtesy of 22 Design Studio)
To share his experience and exchange ideas with other artists, in 2011 Yu set up Lianyun Underground, an alliance comprising eight independent design studios working in different fields. The alliance regularly holds activities, exhibitions and seminars on topics ranging from the arts to financial management. “Our goal is to connect people who love design with those who love beautiful things,” Yu says.
As for the bigger picture, Yu believes Taiwan’s design environment has progressed sufficiently to provide good opportunities for young design companies like his. Backing his assessment are 22 Design Studio’s domestic sales figures, which show an increase from NT$100,000 (US$3,045) in 2007 to the current $750,000 (US$25,860). Yu attributes much of that increase to wider local media coverage.
International Visibility
The studio also runs an online shop that gives it a presence in foreign markets and now has distributors in Australia, Japan and North America. That increased international visibility has seen the company’s total annual revenue grow from NT$1 million (US$30,450) in 2007 to the current NT$5 million (US$172,410).
Although Yu has found some success, he understands that his designs, as well as the material he uses, are not for everyone. His father, for one, has never been able to understand why anybody would want to make concrete rings and pens, nor can he fathom why anybody would want to buy them. Yu accepts that kind of reaction philosophically, saying that everyone has the right to like or dislike a design. “My responsibility as a designer is not to persuade everyone how brilliant my designs are, but rather to show people the diversity of ideas,” he says.
Write to Jim Hwang at cyhuang03@mofa.gov.tw