Interview
Burr inspired puzzle table from Petar Zaharinov

Tabled: An Interview With Petar Zaharinov

Puzzled by furniture

Just under 40 miles from the eastern Serbian border rests the city of Sofia, Bulgaria, acting as home to Praktrik, one of the most puzzling furniture and design companies one might find.

Petar Zaharinov

Petar Zaharinov, co-founder of Praktrik.

Praktrik produces unique products, crafting items like coffee and dining tables, chandeliers, lamps, and a variety of other pieces, each inspired by mechanical puzzle designs. The company’s Impossible and Sliding sets implement elements from traditional Burr Style puzzles, while the Coordinate collection plays with the Burr design direction in a more loose manner.

Petar Zaharinov is the mind behind Pratrik’s work, and along with friend Delyan Spasov, the two have launched their company as a full time effort. The pair continues to turn out new pieces of furniture whose intent is to puzzle their assemblers, and have plans for future products that will make rooms a bit more puzzled.

Zaharinov took some time to provide Puzzle Pile with insights into his background and the furniture company’s history, while also diving into his design philosophies.

Puzzle Pile: Can you tell me a bit about your background and where the path of life has lead you so far?

Zaharinov: I finished the National School of Fine Arts in Sofia, Bulgaria and then studied architecture in the same city. I worked as an architect in a studio for five years after I graduated in 2006.

In 2010 I started Praktrik together with my friend Delyan Spasov. This is my only occupation since 2011.

Puzzle Pile: How were you first introduced to puzzles, and what sort of role have they played in your life?

Zaharinov: As a child I never had much interest in puzzles. I preferred to play with Lego much more than with a Rubik’s cube for example. My first strong encounter with the subject was much later when I saw a man doing tricks and figures with a Jacob’s Ladder Toy on the port of a Greek island. I was very impressed.

As an architect I saw a potential for utilization of its principle: for flexible internal walls, folding facade panels and shading, furniture etc. I immediately started experimenting with it. I wanted to apply its principle of tumbling in more than one direction. After little experimenting it appeared that it is possible but with four elements only.

During my internet research, if someone else had already used this principle the same way, I came across burr puzzles. I was even more impressed. Since then they have played major role in my professional life. I left the Jacob’s Ladder Toy for a while and started experimenting with burrs. I was interested in solutions with a small number of elements and notches that are orthogonal or with angle in only one direction in order to be easily manufactured.

Zaharinov's 4x6 IPP 2009 entry.

Zaharinov’s 4×6 IPP 2009 entry.

The structures in our “impossible” and “sliding” collections were the first I designed. I participated with one of them – 4×6, together with the “2D” Jacob’s Ladder Toy I designed, called 4×2, in Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition 2009. I decided to participate mostly to popularize the designs themselves in the professional community. I made the prototypes myself; as a result, they were not brilliant pieces of craftsmanship.

Actually, interlocking furniture was not the first time when I embedded puzzles in my works. I used the classic 15 puzzle as an inspiration for the transformation and movement principle in my graduation work. Its topic was evolutionary building and therefore I needed to find a way to change the geometry of the building over time. In this case the puzzle was in the periphery of the project, because its essence was the genetic algorithm I programed and used to generate the initial and subsequent floor plans, but it played a major role in the architectural stylistics.

Zaharinov's 4x2 IPP 2009 entry.

Zaharinov’s 4×2 IPP 2009 entry.

Puzzle Pile: Do you have a favorite puzzle type? Are you drawn more toward mechanical puzzles like the burr, or do you venture out to other two-dimensional puzzles, like Crosswords, Sudoku, or the multitude of others?

Zaharinov: I am definitely much more interested in three-dimensional puzzles, not in solving them but in designing such structures. I play with already known examples very rarely. I am not a consumer of puzzles.

It was the same for me with painting at high school. I enjoyed the process and the result of the painting itself, visiting exhibitions and especially their openings was very boring for me. It is not because I do not respect the work of others, they are often much better than me, I just easily get bored when being a user.

I have never played Sudoku, I rarely solve crosswords. I have a collection of different types of brain teasers at home, but all of them are birthday gifts from my friends. They probably think that I am obsessed with puzzles and I know all solutions but this is far away from the truth.

Puzzle Pile: What is the history behind the Praktrik, and what is your role within the company?

Zaharinov: The name Praktrik is a combination of two words – practical and trick. The decision about starting it was a result of the interest that the major online design media showed in my works. This attention made me believe that such furniture can be also successful commercially. I decided to start my own brand, because at that time I was not very well orientated in the design industry. I did not know any manufacturers and brands that would be interested in my works. I also did not believe that someone else could communicate and promote such concept the right way.

Just after the Praktrik’s formal establishment we participated in the biggest local furniture expo. We and Konstantin Achkov, a famous designer of puzzle furniture, used the free stand of a third organization, called Dibla, that did not have anything to show at the time. Our stand attracted probably the greatest interest in the whole expo, which also made us believe that there could be certain commercial success.

My role is related to the artistic part, mainly. Delyan is handling most of the communication. He also programed the website and maintains it. Of course, I also have significant role in decision making, visual identity, marketing strategies, and stylistics.

Puzzle Pile: What are the typical day-to-day responsibilities that you perform at Praktrik?

Zaharinov: I am responsible for designing new collections and models of course, but this is garnished with many other different temporary functions like working on particular projects as “Color me” for example, preparing press materials, taking and editing photos, prototyping, improving manufacturing processes, preparing drawings for custom size orders etc.

Puzzle Pile: Can you describe your design philosophy and why you decided to incorporate burr puzzle form into your work?

Zaharinov: My general design philosophy is to avoid doing what other designers have already done. I visit the major design blogs and media rarely, mainly when I want to see if someone else has already designed something I work on. I am not a big design consumer as well, which I find very useful. When I start following some design media too often I get impressionable and totally unable to generate any original solution.

The idea about incorporating burr puzzles came instantly when I saw them for the first time. It was a spontaneous and intuitive act. Probably the reason that hides behind this intuition is my attraction to the constructivist aesthetics. Designing interlocking structures is very different from traditional design practices. I must first find an abstract principle and then decide about its possible function. In this case, the famous modernist maxim “form follows function” is turned upside down in “function follows form” at least in terms of the design process.

Lamp from Praktrik

Lamp from Praktrik’s Coordinate collection, designed by Zaharinov.

Same can be said for the Russian constructivists from the beginning of 20th century. Most of their projects were visionary and utopian for their time, because they were technically not possible, but their concepts were materialized later by other architects. It can probably be said that most of the contemporary architecture is materialization of Russian constructivism at least as means of expression. Their work was rather making tools than giving contextual solutions.

It is similar for me. I cannot make a promise to a client that wants a new chair design, for example, that I will not finally come with a lamp. In all projects that I worked on up to now, I always used ideas that I had already generated, before I decided if I could implement the task.

When I do not have a turnkey solution deadlines are also not really possible, because compromises with finding the most optimal and simple result are not acceptable. Every element in such works is important not only structurally but also functionally and aesthetically. If you remove a part, the structure will become unstable, unusable, and visually incomplete. If you add one, it will become excessively strong, artificially adjusted, and ornate. Such creative process can take a week, it can take an year, it is not something one can plan.

Puzzle Pile: Are there any particular designers, artists, architects, etc. that have had an influence on your work? What ways have they informed your creative process?

Zaharinov: Of course there are designers, artists, and architects that I like but I can not call them idols or something that has much influence on my work. I prefer to find my own way. I rely a lot on my intuition and instinct. I usually look for inspiration outside the design field. Before I discovered mechanical puzzles I was not interested in product design at all and I still feel like a foreigner in this field.

While working as an architect, I realized that I am not very good in being in line with recent trends, technologies, materials, works of famous architects, etc. The reality was too fast for me; as a result, I found that I have to make my own reality and not to follow the one that is leading at the very moment.

Rinus Roelofs designed sphere

Sphere (hmr#1179) by Rinus Roelofs.

Following and learning someone else’s rules makes me slow and ineffective. I am not sure if I do something significant and really important, but I am sure that being honest with myself and only doing things that I really believe in is the only way for me to feel really useful.

If I have to give a specific name I would mention Rinus Roelofs, a Dutch sculptor and artist whose works are inspired by mathematics and puzzle structures in particular. I found him while researching about authorship of my inventions, after I finished the scale models of the designs in “sliding” and “impossible” collection.

I discovered that we share very similar concepts in two different fields of creativity. I saw the same design I used for my 1×6 table presented as an abstract assembly principle on his website. I contacted him to ask if I can use this principle for furniture, because it was obvious that he invented it before me.

Puzzle Pile: Your creations feature a large amount of interactivity, from puzzling through coffee tables to an illustrative maze made for SDW 2013’s Color Me exhibition. Why do you feel it’s important for the audience to engage both cognitively and tactility with your designs?

Zaharinov: It is like added value to the product. This value has some very important roles like making the user more connected to the piece of furniture. This connection makes him more responsible and more emotionally involved in the process.

praktrik-color-me

Color Me exhibition

The cognitive element stimulates the intelligence which I find very important in modern societies where people are still rather passive and expect to be entertained, rather than active and entertain themselves. Our products are not for people that prefer to watch television every evening instead of attending acting classes, for example.

Tactility is also important, because the people in general started losing their dexterity and becoming immobile, which is finally critical for their health. Assembling a puzzle furniture is not an intensive physical exercise but I hope that it does not contribute so much for this immobilization. At least you have to assemble the chair before sitting on it!

Puzzle Pile: You’ve described puzzles as being “geometrical and constructivist on one hand and mystical on the other”. Can you describe what it is about puzzle structures that creates this mysticism, and if you believe this is, or could also be found in two-dimensional puzzles.

Zaharinov: The nature of interlocking puzzles is constructivist, because structure, function, if any, and aesthetics are one. The structure is probably the main means of expression in such designs which is the same for constructivism as a manifestation of the modernist movement. The “sincerity” of materials and structure is critical for this aesthetics. The main issue about this concept is the total lack of emotionality and humanity that sometimes one can see in such stylistics.

In burr puzzles there is a certain amount of mysticism that I see. It comes from the hidden connection between the initial elements and the already assembled structure. Sometimes the geometry seems impossible for assembly in a three-dimensional space. It almost turns it into magic.

Table from Praktrik’s Impossible collection, designed by Zaharinov.

Table from Praktrik’s Impossible collection, designed by Zaharinov.

This little magic makes the purely geometrical creation look at least a little bit more intriguing, exciting, and humane. I have seen people that got so impressed when they realized that a structure can be self-supporting. They had never thought that it is previously possible. Probably mysticism is a word too strong to describe this, but I let myself use it.

I am not sure if such type of mysticism can be experienced in two-dimensional puzzles, or if some, it is probably not connected to the dimensionality. A classic jigsaw puzzle for example would be impossible to assemble in a two-dimensional space, but we can move its parts in the third dimension which makes the assembly very easy. If there is some magic in 2D puzzles it is probably somewhere else. In famous brain teasers like “squaring the circle”, “squaring the square”, if one feels them mystical, it probably comes from the numbers and the dependencies that appear, while trying to find a better solution, but the feeling will probably be the same if you make these two-dimensional tasks three-dimensional – with cubes, spheres etc.

Puzzle Pile: The furniture designs have also been displayed in art galleries, laid out in an artistic installation manner. Do you see Praktrik continuing these experiments in creative expression in galleries?

Zaharinov: Probably yes! The first experiment “Puzzles for living”, a joint exhibition with Konstantin Achkov, was an interesting experience. If I come up with an original idea about a new way of presenting such structures or a concept for an art installation based on such principles it will be great to have a possibility to realize it. Actually “Color me” and “Archeology backstage” were also exhibitions, though the subjects were not the puzzles themselves.

Puzzle Pile: What does Praktrik and yourself, have on your crafting table that will be coming in the future?

Zaharinov: The new designs that are coming are not inspired by burr puzzles but they still follow the same general course – interactivity and tricks. Folding is my topic at the moment. Of course sometimes I come up with new interlocking principles that I can use for new products for our existing collections. We also want to make a special collection for children – and not to forget – experimenting in a larger scale. My first intention when I saw burr puzzles for the first time was to use them for houses.

Puzzle Pile: Thanks for your time, do you have any final words for our readers?

Zaharinov: I am not going to invite them try our brain teasers, they are probably too easy for them! I just want to thank them for their attention.

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