The subject guides students to review and critically reflect on the conception of furniture (e.g. furniture as a functional object) and hence to re-define and re-interpret “furniture” by appropriate research and design methods. The realisation/making process of furniture is emphasized – materiality and fundamental techniques (e.g. interlocking, moulding and bending) will be explored during the course.

Furniture is not necessary a “static” entity. Users are actually actors in space, their postures, extensions, movements and interactions constitute a “field of action” (to borrow Lefebvre’s term)/“moving spatial field”, which could serve as the basis for an alternative but meaningful exploration of furniture. From this perspective, furniture is no longer discrete object which mainly deals with ergonomics, but a spatial continuum which aesthetically traces and dynamically interacts with the bodily field – a process which inevitably involves an in-depth analysis, critical deconstruction and innovative re-construction of elements of furniture and interior design.

This exploration is theoretically and architectonically significant as it challenges the deep-rooted modern design presuppositions (e.g. “form ever follows function”) and hence casts light on the ongoing search on new relationships between form and function, (architectural) semantics and syntax as well as structure and aesthetics in the field of design.