Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
University of Brighton
Randwall Eco Chair, birch plywood and recycled plastic
Kermik’s research for the Randwall Eco Chair examines three issues: the interface of craft and industrial design; the embedding of sustainable design within contemporary craft and industrial manufacture; and the ways in which history, narrative and craft can be harnessed to foster emotional connectivity between object and user.
The Randwall Eco Chair builds on the traditional chair designed by Kermik (2007) to embody and reflect the crafts, carpentry history and materials of the Sõrve Peninsula in the Baltic Sea. The original chair provided the springboard for a new body of design research to retain the craft ethos and create a sustainable, ecologically sound and emotionally durable prototype that could be industrially manufactured.
To draw together craft, industrial production, ecological design narrative and emotional durability, Kermik deconstructed the elements of his original chair and examined possibilities to combine natural and synthetic materials. He reinterpreted tradition and joinery to preserve the archetypal qualities of the original, its formal and structural language, and its narrative. He used used three-dimensional design software to enhance the accuracy of traditional joinery and woodworking techniques, with a range of advanced forms and contemporary materials, including plywood and recycled plastics.
Positioned at the interface of craft and industrial design, the chair is designed as a flat-pack to be ‘locally’ constructed using new jointing mechanisms that eliminate the need for screws or glues. It simplifies the manufacturing process whilst maintaining its historical connections and the effective relationship between object and user.
The Randwall Eco Chair was the result of an invitation to participate in the international EcoDesign exhibition curated by Professor Yrjö Kukkapuro (2009). It was exhibited in Helsinki alongside 100 others and received over 60,000 visitors. Kermik’s chair was subsequently selected as one of 16 shown at the Madrid FinDesign Exhibition (2009).
SEE DIGITAL PORTFOLIO.
