Their jobs call for them to inject California cool into laptop computers, extreme sports gear and other 21st-century boys' toys. As five industrial designers, average age 26, annual incomes upward of $75,000, they should be living large — at least large enough to, in MySpace parlance, "pimp their cribs."

So why, exactly, would these young men choose to lead an existence that takes minimalism to near-monastic proportions?

"I'd rather be in an empty room than have something I don't want to keep forever," Nick Cronan says. "I hate going to the store to buy chairs just so guests can sit down. Until I get something nice, they will just have to stand up."

Whereas many adults who achieve similar professional success at this age might get caught up in that first-home-of-their-own decorating, filling kitchens with sleek appliances and living rooms with the latest chain-store collection, these designers have brought almost nothing to the coffee table. Their mantra: Way less is way more.

These guys, all 2002 graduates of the California College of the Arts, clearly have a different design for living. By day Cronan, Amit Mirchandani, Eric Bergman, Karson Shadley and Pichaya Puttorngul hold jobs with companies designing products for Toshiba, North Face, Infinity Audio, Bolle and other clients. But on the weekends, the five morph into the Lift collective, convening about once a month to hatch creative ideas for inventions that are informed by their Spartan domesticity — not to mention sly sense of humor.

"We make jokes and turn them into products," Puttorngul says.

"No," corrects Bergman. "We consider compelling concepts and issues and give a physical form to them."

Take one look at Veggie Love, and it's clear both may be right. The collective's cutlery set looks like Shrinky Dink versions of garden tools and was designed as a way of getting people to think about nonprocessed food.

Then there's Lift's Johnny Apple Sandal, flip-flops with seeds embedded in a recyclable sole that's designed to wear away and sow plants randomly. The sandals were a prizewinner in Metropolis magazine's annual Next Generation Design Competition.

"Everybody buys shoes and eats apples, and nobody puts the two of them together," says Metropolis editor Susan Szenasy. "Putting the American mythology of Johnny Appleseed and environmental issues together was an act of pure imagination — very wild and very smart."

Equally inventive but less likely to land on store shelves is Lift's concept for a temperature-sensitive, color-shifting urinal for the artistically minded. Yes, the Peesel.

Scratch the surface of the tongue-in-cheek innovations and product names and you'll find born-in-the-'80s tree-hugger idealism under your fingernails. The prototype products that Lift designs for competitions, exhibitions and their own amusement have a strong green component and serve as a critique of the consumer culture that, ironically enough, is fueled by their day jobs.

Impressed by the Johnny Apple Sandal, last year organizers of the behemoth International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York gave Lift its own display booth. Their exhibit, a 5-foot, brown and Smurf-blue upholstered gorilla named Ooh Ooh, caused a lot of ooh-aah.

"We had people wanting us to turn it into a children's chair," Bergman says. "That was never the intention."

Though the piece looks like little more than a computer-designed stuffed animal with a faux fur mullet, Ooh Ooh is actually a highly functioning piece of modular furniture. With a few strategic tugs, it can be reduced from statuesque simian to a collection of foam-filled lounging units.

"Modern furniture is so cold and hard," Mirchandani says. "We wanted to de-evolve the idea of seating into something more approachable."

Ooh Ooh may have sprung to life as a nod to evolution, but it began on a more primitive level — a seating system called Cellu that Mirchandani and Puttorngul designed for a class project. Composed of curved modules that fit together tongue-and-groove, Cellu forms a sculpture that looks like a mouth with tongue.

"We wanted to make something with an organic form," says Mirchandani, "without trying to impose how to use it, because that depends on the environment and how it fits your needs."