Interview with Konstantin Achkov

After building my own brand Lock furniture, I have now focused on Konstantin Achkov studio, where I develop sculptures with functions or the so-called collectible furniture.

Well thought out objects from our immediate surrounding world.

My passion for furniture and accessories as design challenges has always been great!

The thing I like most is the design challenge called a chair. I never get tired of this thread. The chair is a rather curious object to design and has a more special relationship with its user, because it is one of the few that we do not walk around, but try with our bodies.

It was in my student years an interior for an Italian restaurant with specially made details and lighting fixtures. Unfortunately it no longer exists.

Any material, technology or platform that allows me to sensibly realize my ideas in material. Over the years I have mostly worked with different types of metals and woods and have developed a kind of bond and trust in them.

When I get an idea and see that it makes sense. Then there is a powerful impulse to develop this idea in different variations, and other ideas begin to appear.

For the subject to be smart as assemblies, the making of the details and how the overall product will be assembled. The ergonomic dimensions should not be at the expense of the idea, but should fit harmoniously into the shape.

Any kind! From high spirits and overexcitement when things work out for me to getting angry and sometimes tearing, crumpling or breaking a model or detail that I see doesn't work. In a word, stormy emotions in their full aspect.

Naturally satisfaction that I have not wasted my time, but have created something that begins its life.

Maybe it will meet its audience and be recognized by different people as its subject status.

I always try to be professionally objective. I look at the idea or ideas that are the stake, whether they are original and well thought out constructively. Is there an opportunity for the given material idea to develop into something else like a series or family. How surprisingly the idea is presented and how innovative it is compared to such things.

The designer, like any creator, has the responsibility to shape aesthetic tastes in society. But it also has the additional requirement of making life easier by inventing more understandable, more convenient, more simplified and more intriguing household objects. In recent years, design has also been charged with social concern for environmental protection.

I think it will inevitably become more ecological by any means. Not just things made from recycled plastic or other types of recycled materials. For example, I have been working for many years on the topic of flat-pack furniture that can be easily assembled and has much cheaper transport. Shopping for furniture online and shipping it long distances will make flat packing almost mandatory. Other developments that I like is the increasing move towards pure sculpture and handicrafts.

My last exhibition was in 2024. In Brera, Milan, as part of Milan design week where I showed my new furniture family "Console". I think about the next one when I'm ready with the things I'm doing now to show them. I haven't decided where yet.

Inspiration always comes spontaneously and from many different places. Human fantasy is a rather mystical thing, and once seemingly banal things are an impulse for creativity. I sustain my creativity with immense curiosity in countless directions. I am insatiable for knowledge on topics that excite me.

Engineering and artistic. Perhaps a mixture of pragmatically technological elements and assemblies together with sculptural forms, that give a characteristic overall volume. What makes me work in this way is the curiosity of how I can combine these different directions in one form. My approach is to make multi-layered compositions of different elements in common synchrony.

I was born and live in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. My hometown was founded by the ancient Thracians and then developed by the Roman Empire as a large fortified city. It was then part of the Turkish Empire. One of the reasons is that warm mineral water springs in its center to this day. This cultural layering from ancient Roman remains to modern buildings gives a cultural richness that inevitably influences me.

Difficult when there is no understanding on the other side! That is why I have founded my own brands over the years.

To listen carefully to them! Still, these are creatives with unconventional thinking, and sometimes it takes cultural preparation, time, effort and patience to get a good result.

I design in several phases. At first, when the idea came to me, I developed a very large number of sketches. There I look for optimal shape, joints and silhouette. When I judge that an object is well explained in the sketches, I move on to drawing and making a model or models in 1:5 scale. In this way, I quickly and easily check the strength of the individual elements working as a whole. The drawing and impact of the volumes, as well as the ergonomic dimensions. Everything is then drawn and refined on the Solid program and moved to 1:1 scale prototyping.

Perhaps I will say trivially: my smart phone, desktop computer, music system, kettle for heating water, remote control of the TV.

I couldn't! Every day is different.

To accept the truth that there were great authors before them and there will be others after them.

The positive is that you leave behind artifacts that describe you as an author. The negative is that this is perhaps one of the most difficult professions, where you have to combine incompatible things like an engineer and an artist in one person. That's why he wants full dedication!

To give even the most banal object something original and artistic.

To observe, to draw conclusions from each process whether it is successful or not. But above all, have patience and will.

I use all kinds of tools that help me realize my ideas. Even non-standard things. My workplace is often a creative house. I must always have a pencil, A4 paper, scale measuring line, model knife and cardboard with me.

I always make strict plans and schedules and always real life and the crafting process messes them up.

If I knew the answer to this creative process, I might be playing the lottery regularly.

"How did you come up with that?"

Dealing with different things from different materials and technologies. I think that watching and participating by helping when subcontractors do something on my projects helps me a lot.

Probably smart people with taste!

Each in which clear parameters are set.

Whatever my past plans have been. All related to making my works.

It always has to. Most of the time it is a challenge. But also good support.

I am currently developing a continuation of the "Console" furniture family, focusing on asymmetry. "Console - asymmetrical".

konstantinachkov(Amin)gmail(point)com

I think I said a lot in so many questions!