Wednesday 27 March 2013

The ‘Bolt Chair’ Project - if you can’t throw it away you won’t

Over the coming weeks, 3D Design and Sustainable Design graduate Lenya Paikkou will be sharing her past university projects with us.

The ‘Bolt Chair’ project was the true beginning of physically showing my confusion and my sustainable thinking in design.

As you probably know, some manufacturers deliberately design products with a limited working life. This act, known as ‘planned obsolescence’, depletes the world’s resources and the consumer’s wallet, but comes with a guarantee of repeat business for those pumping out these short-lived products. Product obsolescence was revolutionary seventy years ago, however it has spun out of control and now rules the way we consume in today's society.  


Why, as designers do we want we our masterpieces to break, become unused, unloved and thrown away?  Why do we feel the need to consume so much material?


Emotional Durable Design was the idea cultivating the brief- learn about the Emotional Durable Design theory


When exploring the subject I asked the general public what would prevent them throwing something away. Just one answer was enough for this project to begin- 'weld it down so you can't throw it away'. 




The final product was a two-legged sheet steal chair, MIG welded together. It is bolted to the wall, thereby providing a full seat with arm rests appearing to protrude from the wall also. The use of sheet steal may not be the most ecological, but the idea being communicated was what I then wanted to focus on... if you can’t throw it away you won’t.