| Title |
Study on the Cases and Features of Chair Design Inducing the Participation of Users |
| Keywords |
Participation of Users ; Furniture design ; Blur phenomenon |
| Abstract |
The blur phenomenon obscuring the boundary between the field of designers and that of users may be the key paradigm in the 21st century. However, we observed a number of chair design cases that could be considered as the results of blur phenomenon in the furniture design field from mid 1960s. The backgrounds include the repulsion against the uniform functionalism, deliberation on the life in the future and the development of plastic materials and their processing methods. Under such backgrounds, the designers pursued the new and futuristic furniture design. In that process, what is about the "freedom" that the consumers as well as the designers should have in using the furniture was the important concept. This concept enabled the creation of chair design inducing the participation of consumers. They created various kinds of shapes, functions and structures that the consumers became interested in as if they had fun with toy blocks by mainly using the new material "plastic".
In a formative aspect, the entire shape is classified into the organic shape and geometric shape. The unit types are divided into two kinds; type that the unit of simple shape is repeated only with size difference and irregular combination type of the units comprised of more than two shapes. In the functional aspect, some cases showed the transformation and expansion of the function more variously. Other cases changed the function of chairs to tables, cabinets, or objects. In the structural aspect, on the basis of the method assembling each unit, one method is to assemble using the hardware and the other is to assemble only with intrinsic units of chair.
The chair design created by the blur phenomenon between the designers and the users as described above causes the blur phenomenon between the furniture and the space where the furniture is installed. Accordingly, it is expanding the furniture design sphere including the case that the furniture is not selected as the trifle article depending on the characteristics of interior space but it becomes the element leading the characteristics of space.
This study aims to estimate the change of interior space and the furniture that my cause the blur phenomenon by examining the cases above appropriate for the paradigm of the 21st century. Furthermore, this study will enable the discussion on the directions of future furniture design based on its results. |