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My masters project was structured as a reflective positioning of my ongoing design practice. My background as a Swedish furniture designer, my philosophy toward ’adaptable’ design and the context of my current life in Qatar have all served to shape the nature of the investigation. 

The project has involved the development of an approach to furniture design that embraces the ideas of adaptability and re-interpretation. The potential for adaptability within objects and spaces grew from a consideration of the Swedish word for furniture, Möbel, which comes from the Latin word Mobilis –mobile, moveable. This idea of mobility has been understood in terms of how people interact with the pieces in different contexts and what the pieces themselves become in that context.  For example, a chair is a perfect tool for reaching the top shelf and an excellent storage for heaps of clothes. Even though we all know its original intentions we utilize the chair for an abundance of un-intentional purposes in situations where a handy solution is needed and the perfect tool is missing. There is quite an asset of creative problem solvers available when it comes down to the basic human behaviour of solving everyday spatial situations.  Another thread of the research methodology has been to explore what happens with the pieces in due time, how a function may occur, develop and even change as time goes by. People change, and so might furniture. The idea is that people develop strong relationships with furniture which is built on a sense of ownership and belonging. 

The questioning of the function of furniture was famously interrogated by the postmodern Memphis group, who spoke of a relativistic perspective of beauty and function, where the function of an object should not primarily be understood as matter of usefulness, but rather in a broader context of culture and communication. The relief I sensed when I first experienced the way Memphis was re-defining the concept of function, by allowing the furniture to step out from the walls in order to become an active presence in the space, was similar to what Haks expresses when he speaks of Memphis furniture ‘as a pain relief against the headache caused by functionalism’.

In rethinking the nature of function in furniture design I have also explored the pragmatic perspective of Symbolic Interactionism, a behavioural science that speaks of ‘social objects’ when describing how people interact and adapt to objects in a spatial setting. The perspective of Symbolic Interactionism grows out of the work of Georg Herbert Mead and other pragmatists. It emphasizes the uniqueness of the human being in nature, especially the fact that human beings act ‘back’ on their environment. Symbolic interactionism speaks of how a common understanding of the object is essential for interaction. We define objects according to the ‘line of action’ we are about to take toward them. As action unfolds, the individual may change his or her use of the object, notice new aspects of the object or ignore others. 

In such an interaction “a transformation of meaning occurs, in which the person develops a new conception of the nature of the object”. Donald A. Norman speaks of the idea of “perceived affordances” suggesting the range of action possibilities available for the user in encountering object/space. He speaks of four different kinds of constraints that would limit the number of alternatives for the user: physical, semantic, cultural and logical.

On one hand the relationship that we establish with the furniture that populates our daily lives is one of cultural symbolism, status and social orders, while on the other hand the understanding of the relationship of a furniture object to the human actor’s body and its movements is critical in defining furniture’s role. In Rethinking Culture, Body and Design, Galen Cranz states that there is no such thing as an ergonomically correct chair, because the very idea of sitting is wrong. Humans are meant for moving around. Juhanni Pallasmaadescribes the relation between body, space and object as a multi-sensory experience where all senses are basically an extension of the sense of touch. He speaks of the muscle memory and a haptic understanding of space and objects. 

Such ideas can be seen in Eve Bailey’s work Shoulder Path, in which the form of the sculptural piece is generated by a backward roll. Even though it was created matter-of-factly, the sculpture develops its own logic and haptic response. The choreography of the body and motion as form is apparent in Bailey’s work. The function of her performative oeuvre is to tell a story about the close relationship between body, object and space through the sense of touch. 

Within the practice of furniture design I strongly believe in utilizing the human body as a complex instrument to explore form. By biting into a structure one gets an idea of how solid it is; if the material has elastic qualities or if it is brittle; if it is layered, how it holds together and how it may wear out. When knocking on the structure the resonance will depict hollowness and the sound will speak of the quality of the materials. In sniffing the materials memories and associations can be triggered in a powerful way and a sense of the past may be awakened. When we embrace the piece and try to lift it we feel the weight and the temperature of the materials against our skin. If we drop it, put our weight on to it or try to rock it we begin to understand how it may break. We may look upon it as a potential danger and try to figure out how it may hurt us. We may turn the piece upside down and back off to have a look at it; investigating all the ways we can possibly imagine using it. Then we leave it for a while, before approaching it with another line of action. 

Another imperative that the contemporary designer must address is the almost contradictory idea of promoting less consumption. This design philosophy is usually related to the aspect of wasted natural resources, but there is also the aspect of wasted creativity among people. I believe that a valuable sense of ownership and belonging can be developed when the user is challenged to “make do with what she’s got”. An important objective for my design practice is to encourage people to act back on their environment. The idea that people would like to adapt relates to the DYI tradition in terms of the optimistic approach to personal involvement and fundamental belief that everybody is creative. The idea of re-interpretation of an object/structure bears resemblance to the idea of up-cycling, with the intention to breathe new life in to an existing structure. 

In his lecture, “Gambiarra: Repair Culture,” Brazillian based designer/activist Felipe Fonseca explores the popular practices of Gambiarra, and demonstrates how social creativity is latent in virtually every human activity. This art of improvisation is “a tribute to native genius and lateral thinking” states activist Navi Radjou14 when describing the Indian equivalent of Gambiarra, in Hindi called Jugaad, which roughly translates as “overcoming harsh constraints by improvising effective solution using limited resources”. In Colombia this movement is called Rebusque, and in China there is Shanzai. As Arvind Gupta16 states in his work Little Toys, “when you combine a scarcity of resources with an abundance of knowledge, sustainable solutions are a common result.… Solutions developed by producers who are also users reflect the concerns of both the production and consumption of environment”. 

This sustainable aspect of re-using, the creative aspect of utilizing what you have got, and the fearless aspect of making something yours by re-appropriating it, can be seen in the project Be Anywhere by Sanna Sevika Hansson, in which she travels all over the world accompanied by her metal Stand, documenting the various ways that people choose to use her Stand in their homes. Another approach can be seen to operate at an urban scale, in the works by Marko Bruno, Simone Carena and Min Ji Kim called Borrowed City, where public space is re-appropriated or borrowed for private means. 

People are, it seems, in a constant flux, while the objects around them are more or less static. Designers need to remind themselves that they are designing for people that behave in their own way. However designers are trained to solve problems relative to the clients ‘needs’. This to me suggests that the designer is looking for an outcome in the end that will fulfill all the criteria and last for only as long as needed. In a way designers have taken the fun jobs from others. By establishing the most optimal solutions for a target we often ignore the creative mind of the user. We might even consider the user’s creative mind a problem that should be dealt with as a precaution, so that we can be sure that people behave the right way with the object. People are degraded to become consumers instead of lead actors in the social realistic play that the designer started. 

What is left for the user is ‘shopping as creative work’. Searching for the perfect shelf for a house could be considered a kind of hunting activity. In an efficient market of ‘target group thinking’ the perfect solution for the individual is rarely out there, which brings the person out hunting soon again, maybe this time for something that will make up for previous mistakes. The more clever solution, it would seem, is when you solve situations as they appear, by looking at your surroundings with new eyes and utilizing existing elements that are around you. To me that is the greatest kind of design, since it is sustainable both environmentally and economically and even ethically (with the thought that nobody in a third world country was exploited in production) and I believe it exercises the creative mind of the user in a healthy way that enhances the sense of presence, belonging and being ‘in charge’.  

I don’t believe in perfect solutions. Times change, user’s change, spaces are so different and they too change over time –we move, we grow, we value different things in life. The only thing we can be sure of is that time goes on, at least from the perspective of the aging individual. It happens that you end up spending vast amount of time in environments you felt nothing for to begin with, using furniture you would never have chosen, and it actually changes your mind. What first seemed foreign becomes familiar and you start to appreciate something you did not even notice before. Spending time with something is a key to noticing its hidden potentials. Time works both ways, over time you can grow to appreciate something or grow out of something. If the purpose of something is not set in stone, time might help you redefine your relation to the object/space.  

Behavioural Psychologist Susan M. Weinshenk describes four types of creativity, based on Arne Dietrich’s 18 research on creativity from a neuroscience point of view.  The type of creativity that my design practice relates to is Weinshenk’s third category called “spontaneous and cognitive”. I am fascinated by the way people do not behave with objects and spaces the way the designer intended them to. People can be clumsy, irresponsible, careless, lazy, stupid, forgetful, vandalistic, illogical, spontaneous, disrespectful and cheap; however they can also be creative, innovative, caring, curious, emotional, personal, sentimental and nostalgic. These thoughts have led me to a way of thinking about design and the interactions that take place between designer, user, object and space.