Under Pressure. A Decade of Exceeding the Limits of Steel

I don’t want to be a role model for creating forms but for the hard work and research I’ve been doing for years, and the risks I took to develop new technology.

(Oskar Zięta)

The year 2020 is the 10th anniversary of the Zieta Prozessdesign brand. In June of 2010, Oskar Zieta registered the company in Wrocław and thus started a new chapter in his career as a designer and an artist.

Ten years may seem not much for a business, but it is an era for a creative soul. Especially one such as Oskar Zięta, whose source of the inspirational drive is the advanced technology – and this is developing at a very fast pace. He remains the core of the brand that developed from a family business into an international company.

During these ten years, we have risen from a small studio formed by Oskar Zięta and his father to a multifaceted team of over 40 people fascinated with design, technology and future. From the beginning, the innovation that leads to unconventional solutions and unimaginable forms has been the leitmotif of the Zieta Prozessdesign.

FiDU, PLOPP & Pop

In 2010, Oskar Zięta’s first object introduced to the market, the PLOPP stool, had already been awarded the Red Dot Design Award 2008, the German Design Council Award 2008 and the Forum AID Award 2009.

Following the ups and downs of a young designer, Zięta decided to open the family business to new challenges. The team expanded and was able to meet the needs of the international market. Therefore, the first Zieta Collection was created – it included furniture and accessories designed by Oskar to the date: the standard, mini and kitchen PLOPP (2006- 2009), Chippensteel 0.5 (2009), Chippensteel 1.0 limited edition (2006), RONDO mirror (2009), PIN and KAMM hangers (2009), RONDEL (2009).

Among these products, the PLOPP stool remains an icon and the bestseller of Zieta Prozessdesign. It is a product-manifesto of the FiDU technology, a simple yet playful object – a piece of furniture and a small home sculpture at the same time.

The pop aesthetic of the line and the novelty of the technique shouldn’t draw attention away from the sheer impressiveness of the technology itself.

(Riya Patel, ICON Magazine, 2011)

If PLOPP is a manifesto, then FiDU is the notebook it has been written in. From German Freie Innendruck Umformung it is a method of shaping steel with compressed air that has been developed by Oskar Zięta since 2004. It is the foundation of the Zieta Prozessdesign portfolio.

Innovative Design in Love with Technology

I used to think architecture was an endless story without a happy ending, an ongoing process, and design was more like a phrase that ends with a full stop. Today, I work in design, architecture, art and engineering and I realise that the product development process is long, complex, mysterious and fascinating.

(Oskar Zieta in conversation with Maria C. Didero, DOMUS 2011)

The following years were marked with the launching of new product lines, experimental sculptures and one-of-a-kind objects. In 2011 the DRAB mirror joined the team of FiDU accessories, then in 2012 the CUMA mirror and KOZKA table construction were introduced, among others. In the following years, we also developed the collection of PLOPP stools introducing new sizes and colurs. In 2013 Zięta’s studio experimented with new forms of steel – this way, the 3+ collection was born. At the same time, we’ve been constantly exploring new possibilities of the FiDU technology with such lines as G-Tables, HEAT and Gradient.

Architect and designer Oskar Zieta has become synonymous with inflated metal. Seemingly impossible, his industrial balloon-esque works have ranged from architectural scale pieces such as the NAWA sculpture in Wroclaw’s Daliowa Island (2018) to small-scale furniture, perhaps most iconic is his PLOPP stool (2008).

(Lara Chapman, TL Magazine)

Nevertheless, the full technological and aesthetical potential of the parametric design has been exposed in the unique projects on the border of art & architecture such as:

Monolith

2018

These projects were completed from a pure need for experimentation with form, material and technique. Though they share the same aspect of light, inflated metal, the inspiration for each sculpture was different. Each one was developed for totally different reasons and spaces, and with another objective in mind. What they have in common is their organic structure, driven from the natural world: four elements, the human body, chemical structures brought to a macro-scale, and from such fields as mythology, classic architecture and exploration of the universe.

Not SUPER, but ULTRA… and we still want more!

After 10 years of intense work we now know we want more. Last year, as a result of Oskar Zięta’s experiments with metal, we added a new product to our offer. It’s the ULTRALEGGERA chair – a piece of furniture that was created both from the need to face the material itself and from the desire to emphasize its unique aesthetic and functional properties. In 1957, Italian designer Gio Ponti created the Superleggera chair weighing only 1700 grams. In 2019, Oskar Zięta also took up the featherweight challenge. He introduced to the market an even lighter chair and at the same time stable and modern.

In my company everyone works in an interdisciplinary manner – we are truly dedicated to research in the field of ideas and production.

(Oskar Zięta)

We know that the combination of a huge dose of imagination with the original FiDU technology can bring us anywhere. We will continue to create products that are not only surprisingly light but above all create an innovative response to the challenges of the modern world.

1, 2, 3,.. 10 Years Ago

Milestones by year

Important facts

Prizes

YDMI Award German Design Council, 2008

DMY Award for Innovation in production process, 2008

Forum AID Award for PLOPP, 2009

Red Dot Design Award, Product Design for PLOPP, 2008

Schweizer Design Preis – nomination for Unterdruck, 2009

Materialica – technology Award, 2009

Dobry Wzór nomination for Unterdruck

DesignPreis der Bundesrepublik Deutchland Award, Rat fur Formgebung for PLOPP

Audi-Mentorpreis for Oskar Zięta by A&W, 2011

LODZ DESIGN Must Have Award for Drab, 2011

30 Most Creative People of Wroclaw – President’s Prize, 2015

LODZ DESIGN Must Have Award for the 3+ Chair, 2013

Dolnośląski Gryf –  Economic Award – “For the pioneer of the digital age”, 2016

Architektura-Murator “Innovation in Architecture” Award for NAWA, 2019

German Design Award for NAWA, 2020

Mies van der Rohe nomination for NAWA, 2019

LODZ DESIGN Must Have Award for ULTRALEGGERA, 2020

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