Kenneth Cobonpue: Design Master

What do you do with a dented coke can?

A) Put it in the recycling bin.

B) Use it as an ash tray.

C) Let it inspire you to design an award-winning chair.

Only one person in the world can pick the third option, and that’s 36-year-old Kenneth Cobonpue, poster boy for the Philippine furniture design industry, Cebu’s pride that is fast becoming an internationally recognized brand.

"A softly dented Coke can was the initial inspiration for a new sofa I was working on," explains Kenneth. "Toying around with the shape, I thought of using thick flat strips of rattan in a unique structural way. After months of development, the moulded rattan gave rise to a new form hollowed out at the ends to expose a naked structure all made of the same material."

The result was Lolah, a "sexy and fluid design born from a relatively inexpensive and innovative handmade process". The chair got the nod of the elite board of international judges at the 2005 Design for Asia Awards, one of the most coveted in the region. It was one of eleven design products chosen from nearly 500 entries, cited for "bringing unusual experiences to users, which cater to human functional and emotional needs". Other winners include the Nokia 8800 mobile phone, a Samsung smart oven, a Sony ergonomic flat panel LCD display, ISH magazine, a Hyundai forklift, a ceramic tableware collection based on an ancient Chinese coin, a cinema in Hong Kong’s Cyberport, a collection of Chinese glass art, a steel office chair and a wall storage unit with cut-out templates in a Tokyo boutique hotel.

Awards were also given to six Distinguished Designs from China, and the World’s Outstanding Chinese Designer Award to fashion designer Vivienne Tam, she who put Mao’s face on t-shirts and dresses and paraded them on ramps in the fashion capitals of the world.

The award last November capped a year of other awards for Kenneth, including Best Outdoor Chair at the 2005 High Point Furniture Show in North Carolina and two prizes at the 2005 Las Vegas Hospitality Show. Awards previously won include seven Japan Good Design Awards, the grand prize in the 2004 Singapore International Furniture Design Competiton, and the coveted Editors’ Award for Craftsmanship at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York, the last won together with the other designers of Movement 8, a dynamic and very successful group of Filipino designers committed to creating an aesthetic of modern design with Asian inspiration yet international and cosmopolitan.

Impressive as these awards are, they are just one part of Kenneth’s multi-faceted success. Taking over the helm of the family’s furniture manufacturing business in Cebu, Interior Crafts of the Islands now has 250 artisans working in a one-hectare facility in Cebu, meeting the orders of clients all over the world clamoring for that distinctive handcrafted "modern Asian" Kenneth Cobonpue look.

His pieces are promoted under his definitely Asian-sounding name, which has gained a certain cachet in the high-end furnishings market.

"I’m trying to build a brand," he explains. "I want Filipino designers to get known. It’s an uphill battle because most furniture is sold under a different name, under different companies. It’as a tough call but I insist upon it."

This insistence has even led him to turn down substantial orders from companies that were not willing to put his name on his products. But the branding strategy is paying off–handsomely. For example, Nobu, the trendy New York restaurant, recently placed a sizeable order for custom-built furniture. Brad Pitt bought a Voyage bed, as well as Pigalle and Croissant chairs. His work–and his brand–have appeared in the prestigious International Design Yearbook, as well as in Time, Newsweek, The Washington Post and the Shanghai Daily News. He is also a much sought after speaker in international design forums, even as he actively gives talks before industrial design students in Cebu and Manila, in a sometimes frustrating crusade to establish an industrial design industry.

"Our designs can compete with top-flight manufacturing centers like Milan because of our highly-skilled artisans and our raw materials," he says. "Cebu has 200-plus furniture companies and yet it doesn’t even have a proper design school."

Kenneth knew early on his life would be in design, surrounded as he was with a family furniture factory, artisans weaving rattan and assembling furniture and a mother experimenting with new ways to work this age-old material.

In 1987 he headed for New York to study design at the world-renowned Pratt Institute, because "there was no school in Cebu offering industrial design, and I wanted this training". Study he did, but he also apprenticed at a leather and wood workshop in Italy, and in 1994 won scholarships to study furniture production and marketing in Germany. He spent some time working in Germany after his studies, then headed for home and the family business in 1996.

The time was ripe for a fresh wind and new energy in a company that had been quite successful with furniture that was a cut above the common variety of "native" rattan furniture. Betty Cobonpue’s bold pieces had in time become classics, but, as Kenneth somewhat reluctantly admits, "My mother’s pieces are nice, but they have had their time."

The transition from mother to son was smooth, practically seamless, and if there was any separation anxiety for Betty it did not show. Kenneth modernized–and mechanized, to a certain extent–production as well as design. The transition on the factory floor was equally smooth. "We’re like one big family here," says Kenneth, who admits to being "very, very hands on" in running the factory. "All our employees have been with us for a long time...I guess they also take pride in belonging to a team."

For sure, it’s a winning team, and with the reputation that Kenneth Cobonpue products–Made in the Philippines–has established in the international market, it’s also a big win for the Philippines.