Pratt Students on the Make

Designed from a scrap of polyethylene fabric and perched atop a lazy Susan, the swiveling Rotaria chair looks ready to take flight. Cut like a dress pattern from a PETG cast-off, the backrest springs slightly, and its wings bend upward on each side, allowing users to sit both frontward and casually sidesaddle.

Turkish-born Pratt student Baris Yazici has designed a handsome, horizontally stacking seat that resembles a character from the Kanji alphabet. The chair folds into an arched shape. Yazici’s inspiration came from the mechanics of a shopping cart.

The honeycomb may be the most celebrated natural form at this year’s fair. Pratt student Yves Weinberger uses its organic shape to build eye-catching bookshelves and nooks.

This low-slung, shallow, S-shaped lounger gently and comfortably rocks your world. It also lets you leave your mark, if only temporarily. A heat-sensitive, plastic-laminate sheathing turns colors according to your body heat. The colors fade moments after you leave the chaise.

Todd Seidman, a Master’s student at Pratt, made his bench with a rind of memory foam and space for periodical storage and display below. “I wanted a bench that would fit in an office waiting room,” says Seidman, whose work will be on display at New York’s Felissimo Gallery this month.

Pratt Master’s student Emiliano Godoy has multi-purposed an ashen slab of self-skinning polyurethane foam. It is a flexible magazine and bookrack on one end but, turned 45 degrees on its side, becomes a stool or ottoman.