Small Great Things

The homes of the present and future are outlined as becoming increasingly smaller and this calls for a new breed of multitasking furniture. This furniture has new functions, including supporting new technology and behaviours related to it, new connotations of ‘family’, and a new understanding of ‘workplace’ which seamlessly overlaps with a ‘living space’. This studio will look at ways to study and design the furniture for contemporary interior spaces after studying precedents, user-behaviour and the spaces themselves Each student focussed on an opportunity area for an innovative design solution through a rigorous design process. The process included benchmarking a iconic furniture piece which best addressed the issue, and rearticulating it keeping the contemporary context in mind. In the first part of the studio, the students studied an created models of their iconic furniture pieces. In the second half, the focus was on the design process and on 3D modelling to create their final design. Material exploration,structural adequacy of the proposed design, aesthetics, joinery, detailing and context were the scaffolding which underpinned final iterations by the students.