Yuya Zhou is a young female Chinese furniture designer who has been working on furniture design for her own website. The eastern culture background and western study experience create an interesting chemistry in yuya’s design. There are some mindfulness and Zen elements in her works, while mixing with a modern and minimalist design concept.
Yuya gained a MFA degree in furniture department from Rhode Island School of Design(2021-2023) with a 2-year Merit Scholarship and a BFA degree from California College of the Arts(2016-2020) with a 4-year Merit Scholarship.
Due to the six-year long learning experience in total, she developed a unique design language and a well-established system of thinking that are projected into her works. Besides some regular material like wood, metal, fabric…she also explored resin, acrylic, bioplastic…to the furniture design and making.
“Each material has its own beauty,” she said, “what we need to do, as a designer, is to explore the material characteristics, integrate it to our design and present the beauty of the material in a natural way.”
Yuya has worked in both Fire Road and Jiun Ho as a furniture design intern. She also taught a furniture design winter session course in Rhode Island School of Design in 2023. What is more, Yuya worked as a TA for three courses in RISD and one course in CCA. Besides, she worked as a shop monitor in CCA. In spring 2022, Yuya designed the Mushroom Sitting system for Cappellini Dream Project. Her work was selected by Giulio Cappellini and was digitally displayed in the Cappellini booth in ICFF & Wanted Design (photo of Yuya in ICFF Cappellini booth with her work).
