Shiso

Multifunctional Children’s Furniture

Design Competition/Personal Project

Problem: Design a piece of furniture that can be utilized with Formica’s line of products

Shiso started as a competition project and was later turned into a personal project to design a multifunctional piece of furniture for children ages 4-6. The design functions to promote physical, social, and constructive play by changing between two different forms, a seesaw and a table or bench.

Design Solution

The table/bench form promotes a more social play engaging the children’s minds to form conversations and relations with the partner. The activity of switching and adding components to create a different piece of furniture is seen as a designed opportunity for cooperative constructive play and problem solving. The joints used are reversible and don’t wear out, keeping a focus on circular design with less semi-permanent joining methods using Japanese wood joining technique.

Seesaw: cooperative play physical

Table: social play intellectual

Dimensions: w320 x d930 x h320 mm

Material: Recycled PET pellets (blow molding), upcycled reclaimed wood

Mise Countertop Ingredient Dolly

Human Centered Design Course

Problem: Design a product to improve the cooking experience of your given partner using ethnographic research skills such as shadowing, interviewing, recording, etc.

HMW: Contain prepared ingredients in the vertical space for User A in order to declutter counter space and have ingredients available and ready prior to cooking.

Design Solution

Playing on the French word Mise en Plus, the dolly was designed for preparing all ingredients prior to putting food to flame. The design solution was built on data points gathered by a series of ethnographic research methods taught in class. By focusing on the researched user’s needs, their cooking significantly centered around wok style cooking methods, the dolly was designed to afford preparing all ingredients prior whilst also saving countertop space for a small footprint living situation.