Furnitecture: Furniture That Transforms Space

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The furniture fair welcomes more than 370,000 visitors and presents thousands of brands showcasing furniture, lighting, electrical appliances, kitchen, bathroom, outdoor and workspace products. The disciplines of Interior Architecture and Interior Design are often perceived as the superficial application of aesthetics to high-end residential projects, or as a set of skills required to install seductive qualities in retail environments. They are not perceived as fields of knowledge concerned with positively resolving fundamental human aspirations and needs within the built environment. The initial expectation of many students enrolled in our programme is to learn basic design skills that will ensure them access to a professional world, in which high-end design is the most financially rewarding outlet. For these reasons the students consider designing for vulnerable categories, for example homeless people, less relevant to their professional development. The challenge of motivating students to work on ‘social’ briefs led us to look for ways in which to instil in the students a sense of professional social-responsibility and to stimulate them to consider design objectives beyond aesthetic appearance, or superficial understanding of functionality.

The interior of the undulating house is free from supporting walls, and with storage hidden away, the tall home feels very spacious.Fur n iture has a profound impact on our day-to-day lives without us realizing it. It becomes a reflection of the user. At times, it forms the defining character of the space it inhabits. After all, no home is complete without furniture. With tremendous advancement in design and technology , the escalation in the variety of products is overwhelming. Traditional design has evolved along with the change in fashion fads. This paper sets out the stages (theoretical and practical) by which Interior Architecture students proposed temporary homes for homeless people, culminating in a public exhibition. The paper introduces the term “furnitecture”, and considers how designing for such a vulnerable group involves more than simply providing shelter. Shortlisted for a 2022 Dezeen Award, Lotte was developed in close collaboration with residents in Swiss retirement homes. The students subsequently participated in workshops which aimed to make them aware of general concepts in the discipline of Interior Architecture, such as the way people experience space as a continuous spatial field (figure2) and the selective perception of visual/bodily stimulation, which provided valuable insights as the project progressed. The homeless project itself consisted of four stages: a) Suitcase brief; b) Support Van brief; c) Furnitecture, and; d) Final Brief.

News about our Dezeen Awards China programme, including entry deadlines and announcements. Plus occasional updates. Each student was tasked to build a deep frame (open-sided box) 40x40x40cm (1:10 scale of 4x4x4 metres cubic space) with durable materials and to model a series of spatial elements to allow a number of functions to take place, without necessarily sub-dividing the space into smaller units. Here it is important to note that each student had to consider what his/her person would prioritise as a need, and not to provide a range of conventional domestic furniture such as stand-alone bed and tables. To promote and encourage this mode of thinking, the students modelled first at 1:10 some pieces of furniture acting as functional props (sleep, store, sit, rest, work). They then merged them into one multi-functional spatial entity, thus creating a “furnitecture” [8]– defined as a spatial device that is larger than a piece of furniture and able to manipulate architectural space. The various functions were controlled by small ergonomic adjustments while defining meaningful portions of space. This design approach enabled students to comprehend that designed spaces are perceived as a continuous membrane (even when made of separate objects). [9] Elements of the suitcases and functional parts of the support vans were redeployed to articulate the spatial qualities of these deep-framed boxes. d. Final Brief: Redesigning ZED Pods interiors In the kitchen, the counter has a built-in bench with storage in the seat. Other custom-made designs include a storage unit that doubles as a window seat. Daily updates on the latest design and architecture vacancies advertised on Dezeen Jobs. Plus occasional news. Dezeen Jobs Weekly The Rise of Everyday Design delves deep into the Arts and Crafts Movement. It discusses the journey from its origins, its engagement with commercial mass production, and finally, its place in household products. Each chapter highlights the growing interest of users in design, and the subsequent growth of the market for furniture design.

a. The Suitcase brief

A cookie set by YouTube to measure bandwidth that determines whether the user gets the new or old player interface. Named after the puppeteer's family for which it was originally built, the interior of this home in Sintra, Portugal, was designed to resemble a stage. Various examples of silver furniture have been preserved; not solid metal, they consist of embossed (decorated with relief) or chased (hammered) plates of silver fastened to a wooden core. Silver furniture was made for palaces in the days when monarchs amassed enormous wealth. In times of war, the silver mountings were melted down and turned into silver coins; it was thus that all the silver furniture disappeared from the royal palaces of France. Figure 1: Public exhibition of students’ design proposals at Crisis Skylight Oxford, May 2018 (credit: Francis Varela) Exhibited pieces included an alternative tableware collection created by Abloh for Italian brand Alessi, which features stainless steel cutlery crafted to mimic the appearance of everyday hardware tools.