Dysfunctional Furniture

Type | Furniture concept / product design

Year | 2022

Project site | —

This stool is part of a series being developed on dysfunctional objects. The primary objective of modern-day consumer products is functionality. Modernity has emphasized human-centered goals largely focused on convenience, comfort, cleanliness, and status. These modern consumer habits have come at the expense of environmental degradation, climate crisis, and mass extinction of species.

Dysfunctional object 01 is a coffee table designed to melt and collapse when hot beverages are placed on it. A product designed to ‘resist’ its use and overturn the logic of optimal performance and functionality, exploring and experimenting with anti-design as a speculative research method.

Perhaps, we do not need everything to be new, pristine, and convenient. Perhaps starting from somewhat dysfunctional objects can lead the way to alternative values for design in the post-Anthropocene.