Design For Thought

Reflection

Designers gone astray and municipalities adding urban furniture to their shopping cart have suppressed industrial design from evolving its sociological character. Designers themselves have the same attitude and process on most industrial design tasks and inputs mostly concern the technological and production-line fields. As has been shown, there is a major sociological and aesthetical impact of urban furniture and it is up to future designers to enrich “the historical structure of the objects and reveal their various layers of intention.”

As urban furniture is amongst others the physical tool of a system, it is essential to define the actors of this system and through research configure habits, interactions and preferences. Since the functions of urban furniture are pre-determined (to dispose of waste, to sit down, to send a letter, etc.), the aesthetic expression according to the unique culture of each city is the subject under question. If any “artefact is first and foremost the fragile residue of memory crafted into a mental representation by an individual” and this individual is in this case the citizen of a city, they are to have the first say according to their lifestyle and not an external designer working for a company. Continue reading →