The problem. Nine years ago, two student desks were needed in a small, already furnished children’s room. It had to meet seven user needs. If possible, store as much of what is related to the school as is necessary for learning. It should take up minimum space and be easy to move when there is no learning to leave as much free space as possible e.g. to play. It should serve both primary school and secondary grammar school, thus, no need to change furniture. It should be affordable, reasonably priced. Although compromising, aesthetically it should not be significantly of lower quality than the general level of the apartment. The desk should be the same in both the right and left handed versions. Thus, the decipherment for FST 618 RL in the title is Folding Student Table in right and left handed versions for 6-18 years old children.

Research. There was an abundance of study desks, especially at large home furnishing chains. Aside from the fact that the beech material/colour was already a precondition for me, I faced the following problems. A significant portion of the choice of tables, which were already capable to serve a secondary grammar school student, were simply too large. Those were too wide due to drawers placed on one or both sides and too deep due to the table surface. The other part of the choice was not collapsible. Which seemed the most ergonomic, durable, office like, those were German special-purpose furniture with glass, stainless steel fittings, very cool looking, but they were also too big with unjustified high price. On the other end of the scale you found children's furniture of poorer quality and not serve upper school students due to their small size, including height. To cut it short not just the above seven user needs were not met at once, but even fewer criteria of those were not met at all. What’s even more interesting in retrospect, I don’t remember any breakthrough ideas that would have been worth taking over. The only lesson was that the cables had to be hidden somehow.

Design principles. I have already reasoned the use of wood, in my case beech in furniture design in other case studies of mine. The degree of wear due to daily use could not be calculated in advance, so I did not use the most expensive solid beech wood, but chipboard with a durable quality beech veneer. One of my goals was that the table should be much more affordable than the best furniture commercially available at that time. Ideation. The wheels placed under the furniture and the folding table top were clear, obvious solutions to make the best use of space. I took over the drawer fronts without protruding handles from my previous furniture designs. Prototype. The furniture is basically very simple, the material used is the most affordable, and thus, no prototype was needed.

Product. In the final design, the furniture consists of two parts. It has a roughly 50% foldable table top board with rolling and stoppable legs that can be folded out on both sides underneath. There is a brick-shaped furniture body, also on rolling legs.

The body hides four useful drawers. Three of them open at the top of the body. 

Depending on the child's being left or right handed, the one placed to the right or left includes the lamp, which is taken out when there is little natural light. One of the results of the use of ’one-click’ smart devices is the laziness of children, as a result of which they tend not to take out at all or leave the lamp out all the time. Thus, you can think of a completely different lighting design, but it has to be durable. 

The middle larger drawer can hold textbooks, booklets, or even a laptop. The end drawer is for stationery and other supplies. Both can hide a kind of pop up sorter, it is not included now, but would be a logical upgrade. An unusual solution is the halved, two-sided drawer front with the etched handle, because often it is enough to open only one half. 

The cable is routed in the blind drawer below.

The fourth drawer opens from the back of the cabinet and holds the school bag.I solved the rigid functionality at two points with the aesthetics. The user-side corners of the table surface are rounded with a large radius, the profile of the thick fold-out legs is not square, but nicely curved.

When folded, the table occupies only 86cm*42cm of surface, and 86cm*80cm when opened. It has a standards height. The edges of the cabinet and table surface close nicely.

It serves multiple age ranges with a normal-height, back-supporting standard e.g. living room seat or an adjustable ergonomic office chair. The furniture bears the daily use well, much better than expected. If the desk’s top board damages, you can simply replace just that 50% of the board, it is affordable, though it was not the case yet. However, even this desk could not resolve the problem that by definition children are focusing on their main interest only which is not to arrange their stuff, definitely.