Core77

Berlin native and Eindhoven graduate Yi Cong Lu is an industrial designer based in Leipzig. In 2010 he accepted a teaching post in ID at the University of Art and Design Burg Giebichenstein Halle (ed. note: which partially explains their strong showing at Ventura Lambrate), and his students' gain is our loss; prior to his professorship, Lu maintained a website filled with his experimental design ideas.

His Chairs, Up and Down and Upside Down project from '07 does the Quakers one better, turning folding chairs into short-term storage and closet space:

The Growing Cabinet from the same year incorporates a simple system of drawer slides to expand its capacity as needed:

His Satellight from '08 (also shown up top), inspired by streetlamps suspended over German streets, uses hardware and color-coded cables to provide a single hanging lamp that can roam around the room as needed:

Yi's Panel from 2010 takes a simple construction—a flat pane with a bracket peeling off of it, fitted with a light—and explores how many different pieces of furniture it can serve as:

His updates stop around 2011; presumably Professor Lu has his hands full with the hellions we know you design students to be. But there's still plenty of more of his projects you can check out here.