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Designing Stuff That Breaks
January 15, 2007Throughout the 80’s stores like MFI (a forerunner of Ikea) used to have ridiculous applied decoration ontheir furniture. Cheap chip-board wardrobes would often be embellished with rococo beading and kitsch plastic Gainsborough vignettes.
Years ago one of my assignments at Art College was to write about furniture. As I didn’t have much of an opinion on anything classical I decided to study MFI. A big part of this involved visiting house clearance and junk shops to photograph any classic pieces I could find. Much to my annoyance the job was often frustrated by the poor condition of the furniture, wardrobe doors were always hanging off, and the bottoms of draws were always blown out and ill fitting. My tutor informed me that this was due to something called obsolescence. Designing something knowing full well that in a couple of years the door will fall off.
A few weeks back Per and I found a stackable chair, unusual because it was made entirely of wood. It was at least 40 years old, not very well loved, and repaired in a way that added stress to all the main joints so it wasn’t in the best condition even though it was a very elegant and function object.
Finding this old chair started me thinking, first about restoring, then about how the design could be improved. So finally after all this time I found a true starting point for design, that is looking at what went wrong, then doing something about it. It now seems obvious that the reason that hinges break on MFI furniture is not a result of economy – strong hinges cost more and people want cheap furniture, the reason they break is because the designers are irresponsible.
