Cat Ear Multifunctional Chair by Mingzhi Cai and Hongqi Cai is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2025 Silver A' Design Award in Furniture Design Competition Category.
SilverFurniture· 2025
Cat Ear Multifunctional Chair
Client: Demi Industrial Design Co.，Ltd
Silver A' Design Award Winner in Furniture Category
Verified Award Winner
Verify Award Status for #166612The Design
About Cat Ear Multifunctional Chair
The cat ear chair design can be used as a dining chair, office chair, low chair, and pet bed through different installation methods. Its inspiration comes from the contour of a cat's head, creating curved shapes and designing stretching structures to solve the problem of load-bearing deformation. By using mold hot forming technology and frosted surface treatment, the wear resistance problem has been solved, breaking through the limitations of traditional disposable products and realizing the multifunctional innovative application of a mold.
The Recognition
About the Silver A' Design Award
Cat Ear Multifunctional Chair is a Silver A' Design Award winner, an extraordinarily prestigious recognition granted to top-of-the-line, gorgeous, and impressive designs. Silver winners are tremendously brilliant and exceedingly creative works that illustrate the outstanding expertise, talent, and acuity of their designers. Cat Ear Multifunctional Chair is expected to be a wonderful, showpiece work that is remarkably professional and profoundly innovative. This Silver A' Design Award-winning design is a highly notable, admired invention that benefits and advances the boundaries of art, science, design, and technology. Cat Ear Multifunctional Chair is a vastly envied creation that evokes desires, introduces positive feelings, and sparks amazement and wonderment.
Where to Get It
Innovative Multifunctional Furniture Collection
We craft innovative furniture that transforms spaces and adapts to modern living. With over 50 patented designs and a decade of expertise in injection-molded furniture, our collection combines playful aesthetics with practical versatility. Each piece delivers multiple functions through thoughtful engineering.
Shop NowInterviews
Grand Interview
Your innovative approach to the Cat Ear Multifunctional Chair's transformation between dining chair, office chair, low chair, and pet bed is remarkable - could you elaborate on how this versatility was achieved through your unique structural design process?
The Cat Ear Chair achieves four-mode versatility through three core structural designs: a unified polypropylene shell molded in a single process with 55cm inner diameter, interchangeable leg systems (38cm wooden legs for dining/office height, 18cm recycled PP legs for low seating), and ergonomic hollow-ear handles. Function transformation requires only a hex wrench for leg replacement or removal—converting to pet bed mode in under 10 minutes. This modular approach maintains structural integrity across configurations, with topology-optimized 4mm walls supporting 200kg loads. The eco-friendly PP material ensures recyclability while minimizing production waste.
The curved contours and stretching structures of the Cat Ear Multifunctional Chair address load-bearing deformation in an elegant way - what inspired you to solve this engineering challenge through the metaphor of feline anatomy?
The design inspiration came directly from observing cats' rounded facial structures, where their plump, curved contours sparked the key engineering insight. By digitally translating these organic shapes through 3D modeling, we transformed biological elegance into structural solutions: the chair's curved shell mimics a cat's head profile to evenly distribute pressure, while the hollow ear openings serve dual purposes as both reinforcement points and comfortable grips. During prototyping, we discovered these biomimetic curves—combined with PP material flexibility—achieved 200kg load capacity at just 4mm thickness, validated through 37 digital topology optimizations and physical stress tests. This approach converted anatomical efficiency into functional elegance, proving nature's principles can solve deformation challenges while creating visually warm furniture that appeals to both humans and pets.
How did your exploration of mold hot forming technology and frosted surface treatment for the Cat Ear Multifunctional Chair lead to breakthroughs in durability while maintaining the design's distinctive aesthetic appeal?
Our integrated mold hot forming technology enabled precise control of polypropylene flow at 230°C, eliminating weak joints while achieving uniform 4mm wall thickness—critical for maintaining structural integrity under 200kg loads. Simultaneously, the matte surface treatment was engineered for dual functionality: the 2000-grit sandblasted texture not only diffuses light to enhance the chair’s organic curves visually, but also incorporates nano-silica particles that increase scratch resistance by 300% compared to standard finishes. This synergy between precision molding and advanced surface science allows the frost-effect coating to withstand daily abrasion from both human use and pet claws without yellowing, while preserving the tactile warmth inspired by feline fur—proving durability and aesthetic appeal can coexist through manufacturing innovation.
Behind the Design
Press Kit
Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.
- Unique Properties
- This chair meets various usage needs through different structural components. Through the video, it can be seen that it can be used as an office chair or dining chair. The designer has designed a set of injection molds to achieve at least 4 different functional uses, such as dining chairs, office chairs, rest chairs, and pet beds.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- The diameter of the chair is 55CM, the depth from the armrest to the bottom of the seat is 19CM excluding cat ears, and the total height after installing the legs is 64CM. Can be stacked and packaged, greatly saving transportation and storage volume.
- Tags
- Dining chairs, office chairs, leisure chairs, bar chairs, pet beds, ski cushions, low chairs, swing chairs
- Production Technology
- The product is formed by hot injection molding of polypropylene plastic, melted at a certain temperature, and integrated into a single piece through an injection molding machine. The production time for each piece is about 3 minutes. The designed mold optimizes the shape analysis, and the finished product can be packaged without repair. The material can be recycled and reused. This production technology is currently mature in the market, with high production efficiency and the ability to quickly meet production demand.
- Design Challenge
- Breaking the traditional design, this multipurpose chair is shaped like a Cat's ears . Endowing cat ears with curves while considering modern craftsmanship, with diverse functions and simple operation. Considering the different needs of young people in pursuit of fashion, family users who pay attention to practicality, and business scenes that need a stable texture, we will study and fine tune the curvature of Cat's ears (Steamed cat-ear shaped bread) and other details in the design to collect feedback. After the design was completed, an appearance design patent was applied for to optimize the injection molding process and solve molding defects in production. By using solid wood legs to ensure stable installation and overcoming structural strength issues through 3D modeling, this cat ear chair has been successfully created.
- Research
- Focus on optimizing comfortable sitting posture, combining animal shapes to improve design practicality and aesthetics. By observing interviews, screening and investigating initial drafts, conducting interviews to determine buyer needs, observing chair usage, and recording interviews. Obtain user browsing time and color preference data, identify installation convenience issues. Improve the design direction, simplify the process, optimize installation, and make the chair more competitive.
- Inspiration
- The design inspiration comes from the circular outline of a cat's head. Get inspiration for exterior design by observing cats. Design a hollow contour on the ear and increase the edge width for easy lifting. The armrest is designed with rolled edges to provide a comfortable grip for both hands.
- Project Duration
- In May 2024, we began conceptualizing the appearance of the product, tested 3D printing in Langfang, Hebei in July, achieved final optimization in September, and arranged mold production in late September. It will be exhibited at a grand exhibition in April 2025.
- Operation Flow
- In the early stages, 3D modeling was conducted and a multi-purpose application with optimized usage functionality was optimized through multiple scaling adjustments. After the final draft, 3D printing was conducted to test the convenience of seat installation, and the edges of the details were smoothed to feel smooth and without edges, making it more comfortable to sit and use.
- Patents
- Chinese Patent No.: 202430790474.5 Belonging to: Demi Industrial Design Co., Ltd.Applied on November 5th, 2024，Trademark: DeMiDeLan, Trademark holder: CaiMingRui
- Team Members
- Design Director: Cai Mingzhi
Art director: Li Fengshi
Mentor: Cai HongQi - Image Credits
- Image #1:Design Director: Cai Mingzhi/Mentor: Cai HongQi，Image #2:Design Director: Cai Mingzhi/Art director: Li Fengshi，
Image #3:Design Director: Cai Mingzhi/Art director: Li Fengshi，
Image #4:Design Director: Cai Mingzhi/Art director: Li Fengshi，
Image #5:Design Director: Cai Mingzhi/Mentor: Cai HongQi
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