It seems I have a bit of a Slavic bias of late. After profiling Vladimir Rachev's work early in the week, I'm closing out the week with a look at up-and-comer Velichko Velikov. Lately of the Bulgarian manufacturer Nikrom, Velikov currently calls London home. With an emphasis on the graphic arts -namely, illustration, Industrial Design, and 3-D Modeling-it's no wonder that his latest effort would look right at home in the retro/futuresque wasteland of Stanley Kubrick's England.

Cubba Bubba. Designed by Velichko Velikov.

For those of you who may not know, I'm a sucker for Kubrick, so the reference is, in fact, a complement of the highest order, reserved for such long-time favorites as Kinzo's Airflite, Rossin's Sculptural Chair, and Extremis' Arthur Table-each of which possesses that Kubrickian je nais se quois. Well, I don't quite know what it is about Velikov's Cubba Bubba 5-in-1 chair, but I know I like it. It's playful and serious at once; it arises from an admirable constraint (designing five chairs and a table); it has the aesthetic of a cubist candy cane; and it looks like it'd be fun to roll it down a hill.

I mention the latter because the Cubba Bubba's conception and fruition remind me of that of Breaded Escalope's multi-hued stools (created by filling a silicon mold with dyed resin and dropping it from someplace high), though Velikov wisely limits his color palette to a vivid duotone. Nor does he pummel the landscape with his prototypes-though they look like they could take the beating. A core of rigid foam gives the piece exceptional structural strength, not to mention the uniform contours that allow its multiple metamorphoses-from armchair to stool, easy chair to bench, bench to table and back again. And no worse for the wear of the necessary tumblings.

Velikov's collection of prototypes includes five Cubba Bubbas posed in each of the five incarnations, an ensemble that gets me thinking exponentially: how many different arrangements are possible with these 5-in-1 pieces? I'm thinking five to the fifth, yes? My high school trig is long in the dustbin of memory, but that sounds about right. So keep an eye out for V.V. and his forthcoming onslaught of 15,625 configurations of Cubba Bubba. That'll shake things up a bit.