Furnishing the Future

Abstract

To design is to plan and fashion the form and structure of something artfully and skillfully. Design thus encompasses many fields and mediums, tapping architecture, furniture, objects, lighting, fashion, graphics, and more. Often times the lines between these design sectors blur and designers work on projects outlying their normal range of work (if they even have one), bringing their specific expertise along with them, energizing the new realm of design with a fresh perspective. Moving beyond and implementing design takes a project into fabrication. Whereas it was once common for a single person to design and construct a building or other project, nowadays this is quite rare and almost exclusively occurs with small ventures. There exists a level of divorce, margin of error, and misunderstanding between ideation and creation. Most manufacturing is done on a large scale for the sake of the inherent economies of mass production. Machines are more or less the real workers, as technology advances and molds us into a species of button-pushers. Such progress has led us to systems far flung from the wise processes devised by Mother Nature wherein waste is an unfamiliar concept. Consequently, the environment is suffering for the sake of human endeavors, leading to a situation that cannot be sustained. The public in general is largely aloof from the problem of global warming, although the green movement has certainly picked up steam in recent times. The average consumer is clueless as to the impact of various common decisions. The consequences, largely out of sight and out of mind, if made more readily apparent, could help deter environmentally costly behaviors. This thesis examines the intersection of architectural and furniture design, the consolidation of design and production, and sustainability in industrial practice and public education. These topics are explored in a project intent upon the adaptive reuse of a former furniture factory in Grand Rapids, Michigan, for the establishment of a facility that uses postconsumer goods in the design, manufacture, and sale of furniture by a company whose transparent business practices serve to help other industrial enterprises and society at large convert to more sustainable behaviors.