LAURA AVEDISSIAN / DESIGN MANAGEMENT BA The title above is a quote I read when I was beginning my second year of Design Management. I encountered the quote in the book “Do Good Design: How Design Can Change The World?”. I had a growing interest in furniture and interiors, and the sentence made me feel guilty for wanting to work for that industry. Now I have a better understanding of that statement - which is often not true as we will see below - and of my place as a designer who hopes to be entering the furniture industry one day. As a marketing intern at a software design school in East London, I create content for the school’s social media accounts. We use our social media as a means to connect to other creative businesses in London - so I write about designers, artists, makers and creative hubs around the city. The main focus of the school is to teach design software to students who want to get into interior design, furniture design, architecture or graphic design. I am constantly researching about creatives who work in those fields - learning a lot of what has been happening in the furniture industry and realizing that furniture design, making, and commercialization are extremely political. One of the most interesting contradictions in the furniture industry is that while furniture makers and dealers have been tackling our global waste problem, it has also been of great influence on over-consumption and therefore, waste. Three of the main ways that furniture designers have found to tackle the waste problem is by re-using waste materials (from within the industry and from outside) into their furniture making practice (image 1), by creating and using long-lasting or new sustainable materials and processes, and by reselling preloved and vintage furniture (no production, no waste). Image1: James Shaw - Designer best known for its extruded plastic forms made of recycled HDPE plastic. Image 2: Injection-moulded chair that can be composted, developed by Prowl Studio. However, the fact that the furniture industry is a major contributor to overconsumption and waste is no secret. And that’s based on two important facts: long-lasting furniture is expensive, and cheap furniture tends to be thrown away and replaced by new items which follow the market trends of the time. During my DPS year I have been going to vintage sales, flea markets, and international fairs. And I have realized that If you are not an expert who can (with luck) spot a lucky bargain at vintage sale - for prices ranging from £10 - £400 - there is only so much you can find (in items, and in quality). In addition, furniture fleas are also guided by the market’s trendsetters - I was once speaking to one of the furniture sellers, and he told me that they know what is “on” and end up selling hundreds of the same style of tables/chairs/stools for a streak of months or years and store furniture that might not sell now (but one day might) in their warehouses. For instance, the return of mid-century design pieces have been happening since the 1990’s. This month, I went to the Salone del Mobile, in Milan. The Salone is the biggest furniture fair in the world in which the most famous furniture brands and manufacturers present their new collections and collaborations with designers. It was clearly stated that mid-century design is back: swooping organic lines, mixed materials and textures, clean angles, an emphasis on geometry. Furniture at Salone del Mobile 2023, by Kartell. Chair by Patricia Urquiola, table by Piero Lissoni, lamp by Ferrucio Laviani. But why Mid-|Century design? Furniture and ideology have always walked hand in hand. One of my favorite books on the subject is “Objects of Desire” by Adrian Forty. The book expands on the fact that with furniture, comes along “social contexts”, allowing objects to have an autonomous existence. It explains that every product, handmade or manufactured, to be successful will incorporate the ideas that will make it marketable. What political values associated with mid-century furniture design are we trying to bring back?
With this, I realize that as someone who wishes to work in furniture design and commercialization, there is so much to be taken into account when creating a piece of furniture. Materials, lines, textures, trendsetters, prices, personal biases, values and the overall product lifecycle are all politically heavy decisions that a designer has to make in order to design a positively meaningful object. Resources Pater, Ruben. (2016) The Politics of Design: A (not SO) Global Manual for Visual Communication. Amsterdam: BIS Publishers. Forty, Adrian (1986) Objects of Desire. Place of publication: Thames & Hudson. Berman, David. (2008) Do Good Design: How Design Can Change Our World. Place of publication: Peachpit Press. Shaw, James. (2017/2023) James Shaw. Available at: https://jamesmichaelshaw.co.uk/ (Accessed: 24/04/23). Prowl Studio (2021/2023) Prowl Studio. Available at: https://www.prowlstud.io/ (Accessed: 24/04/23). Dezeen (2023) Prowl Studio develops "first injection-moulded chair that can be composted". Available at: https://www.dezeen.com/2023/04/17/prowl-studio-peel-chair-m4-factory-milan-design-week/ (Accessed: 24/04/23).
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