Further thoughts on social furniture

Take Me Make Me Workshop

Last Saturday JMB Collective were at Camberwell Open House.  We were giving out Take Me Make Me boxes - a kit of stuff to make with and asking people to have a go at making something from the ingredients in the kit.  Some of the results are pictured here!  Each kit had a different set of familiar objects in it, we hoped it would inspire people to look differently at the objects surrounding them at home, and what their potential could be.
We had a lot of interest and gave out 60 kits (thank you if you were one of those who took part) and got some great feedback from our visitors. 

Kit preparation

Social Furniture

Last week I took part in a workshop centered around ideas of social furniture.  The aim was as follows:
To design a social furniture that creates a sense of community around it, not just physically but
mentally through a process of creation.

There was a very interesting set of participants including product designers, stylists and artists. 

 This piece started out with a bunch of us wearing one sleeve of a shirt, with our other sleeve tied to another participants empty sleeve.  It ended up being a large ping pong bat, with an orange being bounced from shirt to shirt.

This was an experiment in tension and coordination.  A piece of blue plastic canvas was pegged around 4 participants and created a series of pockets for containing and carrying goods.  It also provided a surprising amount of strength - the participants found they could all lean back simultaneously and it would hold their weights.

For lunch we ate and talked in a Food Communication Lab hosted by Natasha Rosling.

The afternoon ended up with a discussion of ideas that had come from the mornings experiments, some of which are documented below.

Co-Design by Think Public

 

Brilliant video by Think Public

Embellishing possibilities, is it co-design?

A question:  If you add something , embellish or mend a garment that already exists are you collaborating with the maker?  is it collaboration or is it one step removed?