Pop-Up-Space, Berner Fachhochschule BFH, Bern

Classic tables with a four-leg metal frame no longer offer the necessary flexibility expected in today's educational environment with its modern room concepts. Björn Ischi has made them fit for the future.

Transforming old furniture into furniture that meets contemporary standards requires a great deal of imagination and an undogmatic and unconventional approach. As a designer, Björn Ischi goes beyond clichés and deliberately refrains from using them. Instead, he dismantles disused pieces of furniture and limits himself to what is already there. Only the bare essentials are added, combined with new shapes and surface designs. One example of this unconventional approach is the furniture created for the pop-up space at Bern University of Applied Sciences.

Here, old table tops were cut to new sizes and supplemented with solid wood side rails. He also used offcuts from the Girsberger carpentry workshop for the connecting elements, casters, and leg ends. Felt elements can be attached as needed to provide privacy. Electrification is provided by plug-in modules. This has transformed formerly rigid tables into mobile desks that students can easily move around the room by lifting and pushing them.