Year: 2025
Medium: Cardboard, reused materials
Themes: Emotional durability, up-cycling, circular design, ancestral knowledge
Overview
A transformable furniture system that re-imagines how we relate to the objects in our lives. Inspired by jigsaw puzzles, ancestral repair practices, and the quiet resilience of my grandfather’s wooden desk, this project explores how design can hold memory, meaning, and adaptability across time.
Made from found materials and grounded in circular design principles, the system shifts between a bed, couch, dining table, and storage unit. More than student furniture, it's designed to endure, reconfigure, and invite reflection.
Auto-Ethnographic Insight
This project began as a personal meditation on rest, repair, and memory. My grandfather’s desk — handmade, well-worn, and never replaced — became a symbol of emotional durability. That memory shaped my approach: What if we designed new furniture with the same sense of care and permanence?
Process
Prototypes using reused cardboard and interlocking joinery
Tested four modular modes for adaptability in small spaces
Informed by Design as Care, the UN SDGs, and vernacular Indian practices
Reflection
This project reconnected me with the values I was raised with — repair, reuse, and respect. It became a practice in designing not just for function, but for continuity, care, and longevity.
Exhibition
Do We Need New?
