A Foldable Canvas
The Blankito stool, designed by Studio Unosinotra (image: Fabian Frinzel).
The term “bangkito” refers to the ubiquitous, improvised, small, low stool used throughout the Philippine archipelago. Whether it helps squeeze one more person into a jeepney minibus (the country’s primary urban mode of transport), offers respite for a market seller who has been on their feet all day, or enables a quick chat or game of chess at informal street gatherings, a bangkito is always at hand. Often crafted from wooden crates or scraps, held together with wire or various other found materials, it is ripe for individual adaptation.
“A traditional jeepney experience was one of the inspirations for creating our Blankito,” explains Mona Alcudia, co-founder of product design and architecture studio Unosinotra. “The conductor pulling out a bangkito in the middle row to accommodate way more people than a jeepney can hold, or playing budots, a form of Filipino grassroots electronic music, from their cell phone for everyone to hear.” A merging of “bangkito”, a Filipino word of Spanish origin, and the English word “blank”, the Blankito is both a compact, foldable chair design and a blank canvas.
Founded in 2022 by Alcudia and Buddy Lim Ong in Cebu – a Filipino city with a long history of craft-based furniture making for export, which was announced as a Unesco Creative City of Design in 2019 – Unosinotra set out to create a chair using digital fabrication methods while also drawing on local inspiration and reference points.
“Traditionally, to be able to design and make commercial furniture in Cebu, you had to come from an established family with roots in manufacturing and export, and have your own factory,” explains Alcudia. “We wanted to challenge this by using more democratic fabrication tools.” Each Blankito is made with three pieces of CNC-cut, furniture-grade plywood, which are held together with cargo straps and stainless steel quick-release buckles and hinges, and finished with 3D-printed branding tags that also show the assembly instructions. The studio designed the stool to be customisable, enabling buyers to create bespoke surface patterns, seat shapes and other detailing prior to purchase. Additional plans are now afoot to release the CNC files online, enabling further adaptation.
Blankito also folds out flat, transforming it into an artwork that could be displayed on a wall. This feature was highlighted by Unosinotra’s contribution to the 2023 Tubô Cebu Art Fair, for which the studio commissioned 15 artists from the Visayas, the island group that Cebu is part of, to transform the Blankito. The resulting pieces – including seats made from upcycled cotton scraps and a portable bag/stool combination – emphasise Blankito’s adaptability and versatility, but also pay homage to the ingenuity of everyday objects in the Philippines.
Words Ligaya Salazar
Photograph Fabian Frinzel
This article was originally published in Disegno #37. To buy the issue, or subscribe to the journal, please visit the online shop.