Accordion Sofa Modula by Yuqi Wang is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2025 A' Design Award Gula in Hoʻolālā Lako Hale Competition Category.

GulaLako Hale· 2025

Accordion Sofa Modula

by Yuqi Wang

Client: Jason Furniture (Hangzhou) Co.,Ltd.

A' Design Award Gula Winner in Lako Hale Category

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Verified Award Winner

Verify Award Status for #170311

View at A' Design Award Press Release Award Badge

Colors

The Design

About Accordion Sofa Modula

He sofa modula ʻo Accordion i kūkulu ʻia mai hoʻokahi māhele kumu. Loli ka nui a me ke ʻano o ka māhele kumu ma o ke kaomi ʻana, e like me nā ʻōpū makani o ka pila accordion. Hiki ke hana ʻia nā hoʻonohonoho sofa he nui mai hoʻokahi māhele e kūpono ai i nā wahi like ʻole. Hana ʻia ke kino me ka hū paʻa hiki ke kaomi ʻia me ka hoʻihoʻi kiʻekiʻe, a hui pū ʻia nā papa ʻaoʻao lāʻau me nā kaula ikaika a me nā puʻupuʻu hiki ke hoʻoponopono ʻia. Ma ka wili ʻana i nā puʻupuʻu, paʻa nā kaula a kaomi ʻia ka sofa. Hiki nō hoʻi ke kaomi ʻia ka sofa no ka hoʻopili ʻana ma ke ʻano pālahalaha, e hōʻemi ana i nā koina hoʻopili, mālama waihona, a me ka halihali.

The Recognition

About the A' Design Award Gula

Ua lanakila ka hoʻolālā Accordion Sofa Modula i ka A' Design Award Gula, he ʻike hoʻohanohano nui loa i hāʻawi ʻia i nā hoʻolālā pae mua, kupaianaha a kūʻokoʻa. He mau hana hou loa, ʻike maka a nani hoʻolaʻa nā lanakila Gula e hōʻike ana i ka ʻuhane akamai, ka naʻauao a me ka mākau o kā lākou poʻe hoʻolālā. Manaʻo ʻia ʻo ka hoʻolālā Accordion Sofa Modula he mea hoʻokumu i hoʻomaikaʻi nui ʻia, e hoʻokumu ana i nā ʻano hou, he nui, e hāʻawi ana i ka waiwai ʻaʻole i ʻike ʻia ma mua. ʻO kēia hoʻolālā i lanakila i ka A' Design Award Gula he papahana kupaianaha, mahalo ʻia e hāʻawi i ka pōmaikaʻi nui a hoʻoneʻe i nā palena o ka hana noʻeau, ka ʻepekema, ka hoʻolālā a me ka ʻenehana. Hoʻāla ka hoʻolālā Accordion Sofa Modula i nā manaʻo makemake ikaika, hoʻāla i ka ʻiʻini, hoʻoulu i ka hana noʻeau a hoʻopūliki iā mākou.

Behind the Design

Press Kit

Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.

Unique Properties: This is a modular sofa. What sets it apart from most modular sofas is that it uses a single base module capable of changing size and shape to create endless sofa configurations. Additionally, it can be compressed for flat-pack packaging, making it easy to carry while also reducing packaging, storage, and transportation costs.
Dimensions & Packaging: The sofa dimensions are W890*D1150*H700mm.Since the main body of the sofa is made of high-resilience compressible foam, it is volume can be significantly reduced through mechanical compression during packaging. The flat dimensions of the sofa are W230*D1150*H700mm. It’s only 2/5 of the sofa.This reduction lowers the costs associated with packaging, warehousing, and logistics. It also can be easily placed in a shopping cart or carried on the back.
Tags: Modular sofa, Transformable sofa, Flat-packing, Portable sofa, Playful sofa, Tool-free assembly, Sofa for all spaces, Sofa for all spaces
Production Technology: The sofa is made of high-resilience compressible foam, and the wooden side panels on both sides are connected by durable climbing ropes and adjustable knobs. By rotating the knobs we can pull the internal ropes tight, the side panels can compress the sofa and achieve shape changes and size changes.
Design Challenge: The most challenging part of this project was designing a simple mechanism to adjust the sofa's shape. There are almost no sofas on the market that can change their form through compression, leaving us with no existing examples to reference. As a result, we researched compression structures across various fields and ultimately found inspiration for the sofa's compression mechanism in industrial machinery. We then created a simple prototype to verify its feasibility.
Research: Our research is aimed at the furniture market, and we hope to get an innovative sofa product through our project. We Collected information through our e-commerce department, including user’s evaluation, Logistics distribution evaluation and other multi-angle information. We have identified several issues with many current sofa products, such as excessive specifications, difficulty in selection, large size, transportation challenges, and the inability to adapt to various spatial layouts. To address these market problems, we designed this sofa.
Inspiration: The design of the accordion sofa is inspired by the dynamic changes of the bellows during an accordion performance. This gave me an idea: if a sofa's base module could be compressed to change its shape, just like an accordion bellows, then this transformable module could be combined into endless sofa configurations. This would minimize the number of sofa specifications needed.
Project Duration: The project started in December 2024 in Hangzhou and it is scheduled to be completed by July 2025,and available for sale in October 2025.
Operation Flow: The three knobs on the side of the sofa are located at the top of the backrest, the bottom of the backrest, and the front of the seat cushion. Rotating the different knobs tightens the durable outdoor ropes inside the sofa at those positions, pulling the side wooden panels closer together. As the panels compress the sofa, different shapes are achieved. The knob design features clear and intuitive patterns, making it very easy to operate. Two sofas can be connected using the knobs and the wooden holes on the opposite side, much like Lego bricks.