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A Folding Tabletop with an Unusual Mechanism

By industrial designer Pelin Özbalci

By Rain Noe - November 23, 2022

in Furniture Design

"Sometimes you find ideas from places you least expect," writes Turkish industrial designer Pelin Özbalci, on her LinkedIn. "That happened to me when I saw a video explaining how an ancient Chinese waist fan worked. It was simple yet incredibly clever, and I wanted to apply the idea to another product: a side table."

Özbalci worked out a simple, elegant way for a hinged surface to be held rigid.

"The mechanism works with the help of a central pivot and a sliced round surface linked together with a mesh underneath them - and a 90-degree rotation. When rotating the surface to make the slice direction perpendicular to the table, the supporting piece in the middle holds the surface straight. Rotating back to make the slice direction parallel to the table, the sliced surface bends and hangs from two sides."

"The result: a piece of furniture that can be used as a statement piece until the surface is rotated to become a side table."

I'd love to see Özbalci explore this mechanism further, in multiple environments: Kitchen, RV, tiny house, et cetera.

Also, Özbalci, if you're reading this: Please do send the link to the original video that inspired you. I'm sure it's a translation issue, but I can't find anything for "Chinese waist fan" and would love to see the original mechanism.

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Luiz Pedroso

2 years ago

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Dear Rain Noe, thank you for the pleasant and interesting article. Always feels good to read an objective text that adds something new to our minds.
I Googled about a bit and I believe the "waist fan" may be a Circular Fan, as I found the design to be in similar shape (but not foldable). Take a look on this one:
https://youtu.be/U467pnMilxM
Have a nice day!

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Stephen Kitts

2 years ago

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Instead of Chinese Waist Fan try googling Yāo shàn and then look at images. Here is a website that explains the history of the waist fan. https://www.newhanfu.com/37353.html

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