Daily Blog, 28th March, 2011

I have been exploring the idea of looking at objects inside out, I have been looking in particular to the runners that are used on drawers, I would like to look at how these could be changed to be the man feature of the drawers and change the object completely so t works in a different way to what we expect.

 I have been looking at different ways in which we interact with objects and how this makes us feel, by opening the drawers in a particular way will this make us feel differently? and could the different way that the drawers open have different effects as well, i.e if the drawers slides open like a swing so it is on a curve rather than straight out at us like the conventional drawer, or if it swung downwards instead, does this have a negative impact compared to swinging upwards? Also could the drawer runners be shaped into a wave shape so when the drawer opens it bobs up and down? These are all things that I would like to explore.

Dave introduced me to the company 'Unto This Last' -
"Unto This Last purpose is to offer you the convenience of the local craftsman workshop at mass-production prices. We design along a single principle; less dependence on heavy industrial processes, more use of innovative digital tools adapted to the small workshop". 
"Instead of buying furniture from a warehouse outside of town, we thought you would prefer a visit to a workshop close to the city centre:  everything you buy from us is made at the back of our shop, on a digital router".
"Designing for local production 
The style of our products reflects our design principle: - We use a special birch ply composite throughout, in order to get edges we can polish to a smooth finish. Our software optimises the use of each sheet with smaller products to spread the cost of this material and reduce waste.
- All the parts of our products are cut from the same material to avoid depending on industrial fittings. This simplifies our supply chain and shortens our lead-time.
- We only deliver in London to eliminate the need for packaging and cut costs".


Even though the style of the furniture designed isn't particularly radical and inspirational, the concept of the business is interesting. I can order any of the furniture on the site to my spec  so there s a real catalogue feel to it you can choose the wood used and the colour however they produce these objects when ordered and so do not make these objects before hand they are quite like Hyundai who manufacture their cars to the number that they know will be sold so they don't have to worry about losing ant money.

I have been making models of drawers with different shapes cut onto the side so that it slides in a curved manner instead of straight out I will be looking into this further and seeing once I have got the design that I want I would like to look at other pieces of furniture to see what the practicalities are and what I can add to my design to make it more appealing.