In Inami, Nanto City, I taught a "Street Furniture Production Workshop," which involved upcycling furniture from vacant houses to create a new landscape for the town.
At the opening, a lecture was given to the high school students who will be embarking on their future creative endeavors on the theme of "The Second Life of Things."
We shared three perspectives that provide design hints.
1. Break down and think about the object. Let go of preconceived notions of purpose (labeling) such as "a chair is something to sit on" or "a chest of drawers is something to store things." Reassess the pure material feel, shape, and structural characteristics of the object itself.
2. Affordance: "When you find a step of a reasonable height, you can't help but want to sit down on it" or "When the view looks good, you want to climb up." This is about the properties (affordance) of the environment that naturally induce human behavior.
3. Intimacy This is the sense of attachment and love that can be found in folk art and other things. It is a value of beauty that resonates with the heart, which is a departure from the modern emphasis on convenience, style, and cost-effectiveness.
With these perspectives in mind, we selected furniture from an abandoned house and held two production workshops.
At the production site, with the help of local carpenters and neighbors, furniture full of ideas was born through interaction across generations.