dysfunctional furniture series 02

Type | Furniture design    Year | 2022    Project site | Rotterdam, Netherlands

Client | self-initiated

What is useful? What is waste? What is beautiful? What is ugly? Does utility always equate to goodness and uselessness to badness? When does an object become useless? When does something become garbage? These two chairs are part of a series being developed on dysfunctional objects. The primary objective of modern-day consumer products is functionality. Modernity has emphasized human-centered goals primarily focused on convenience, comfort, cleanliness, and status. These modern consumer habits have come at the expense of environmental degradation, the climate crisis, and the mass extinction of species.

Perhaps, we do not need everything to be new, pristine, and convenient. Perhaps starting from somewhat dysfunctional objects can lead the way to alternative values for design in the post-Anthropocene.

These two chairs were built exploring dry and reversible connections that frame construction as a temporary reconfiguration of parts, giving way to spontaneity and improvisation in the fabrication process, and caring for the specific aesthetic quality and texture of discarded materials.