Ahead of Schedule - Designs by Dogyun Park
07.10.26
WORDS BY ERINA MANNAN
After years of studying craft, Dogyun Park has established his own design brand, working mostly in steel across furniture, lamps, speakers and eyewear. For the HELIOT EMIL x SONGZIO collaboration in South Korea, he created a steel table built around a handmade sword. His pieces look like sculptures from the near future, yet each one is made to be used.
Dogyun Park's designs look as though they've arrived slightly ahead of schedule. With a foundation in Craft Studies, he continues to push his own understanding of what craft and design can achieve, making pieces that are both functional and decorative.
“The reason I started designing furniture has a lot to do with my background in craft. I believe that while craft certainly pursues beauty, one of its most fundamental qualities is that it is ultimately made to be used.”
“Studying craft has given me the opportunity to experience furniture-making in a way that would be difficult to learn elsewhere. I’ve also developed a strong interest in the physical qualities of metal, particularly its materiality and the way it responds to form. Through exploring different sculptural approaches to metal, I’ve naturally found myself creating furniture that can exist somewhere between an object and something meant for everyday use.”
This balance is clearest in Table and Fencing Sword, made for the 2025 HELIOT EMIL x SONGZIO collaboration in South Korea. In this design, a circular steel table encompassed an ornate, handmade sword.
“I remember the entire process—from the initial concept and design to fabrication—coming together incredibly smoothly, almost as if I were being guided by something I couldn’t quite explain.”
Since then, he has designed chairs, lamps and speaker systems, primarily out of steel. Each piece works as a functional tool and as a standalone art piece. His speakers in particular have drawn a lot of attention.
“I tend to look at the world with a particularly sensitive eye, constantly observing and absorbing the images, objects, and experiences around me. I then naturally repeat the process of digesting and reinterpreting them in my own way.
Because of this, I think my work tends to be less about following a particular trend or aesthetic of a certain era, and more about what remains after all of those influences have been processed internally and filtered through my own perspective.”
Dogyun Park has also turned his “sensitive eye” towards fashion, releasing a series of eyewear created through 3D modelling.
“I’ve always had a strong interest in fashion, and I started making eyewear because I felt that, within the range of objects I could conceptualize and produce myself, glasses were one of the closest forms to fashion.”
