IN TOTO
IN TOTO means ‘as a whole’ to create a product that allow user to be able to grow and develop meaningful connection to it.
IN TOTO was awarded the Industrial Design Honours Merit Collegiality Award 2023 by RMIT University and a winner of the SIT Furniture Design Award 2024.
Project type
Furniture Design, Sustainability
Year
2023
Role
Concept Designer, Maker
Tools
Fusion 360, Keyshot, Procreate, Woodworking
“Why do we keep certain products for a long time, while others we are willing to throw away before they’re even broken or damaged?”
Issue
The project was established with a steadfast determination to address two pressing matters. The first being the growing concern of furniture waste that continues to escalate, resulting in an excessive burden on landfills. Secondly, the current culture of disposability among modern generations which perceives products, including furniture items, as easily replaceable commodities rather than long-lasting assets. This viewpoint has consequently led to significant environmental issues due to lack of consideration for sustainability and longevity in product design and usage.
Why Children Furniture?
The developmental milestone of children being able to use furniture is significant. However, it's important to be mindful of the environmental impact when children outgrow specific pieces of furniture. This situation highlights how certain furniture items lose their value once a child no longer needs them, leading to disposal. This underscores a design flaw that presents an opportunity for implementing a solution. A potential design prospect for a versatile kids furniture that can be transformed into useful entities, serving an alternative purpose beyond its original function.
Design Criteria
By defining the problem and recognizing opportunities for design, I can chart a clear course of action to move my project forward. This process involves identifying critical design elements:
Raising awareness on fast furniture and people’s consumption culture of premature disposal of furniture
The need for the children furniture to be able to have another primary function after children grew up of it
Allowing user to be able to customize some parts of the furniture, hence allowing value of the product to increase overtime
Easy to repair and disassemble parts, in order to incentivise repair thinking to the users - perhaps think about systems in which users can also be able to self-repair or bring to a workshop to be helped to repair the broken parts
Has to follow child safety guidelines and use materials that are sturdy and safe for children and adults
What happens to the furniture after the child grew up?
I conducted a survey of 25 parents in Melbourne who had previously owned children's furniture. More than 75% of parents have disposed of furniture that their children have outgrown, even though the furniture is valuable and still in good working condition.
After engaging in various stages of design development, I had the opportunity to consult with furniture makers, experts, and users. Taking their feedback into consideration, I made revisions to my initial design and finalized it. This involved addressing specific design details such as choosing suitable materials and determining manufacturing methods.
Adult Chair
Play Table
Child Chair
Stool
For children and adult.
IN TOTO was design to evoke behavioural change and mindset change as users view furniture differently than just an object. As it is a furniture that grow together with the children and the adult, it is evoking emotional connection between the object and users and make the users view the product as something that is meaningful. This allow the product to be able to be valued past its old state, past its broken state because it contains memories from both users. This will also eventually provoke the users to want to repair the piece instead of throwing it away, driving the culture of use-dispose away and bringing in repair-use method of consumption.
