Project Maison
Created in collaboration with Allen’s Cruz, Johnelle Smith, Lys Quintero and Van LePlywood, vegetable tanned leather, reclaimed textiles
Beeswax finish
Concordia 2017
Sofa exposed at L'Espace Projet beside my aging maple table
What is a home?
Why is it so important?
How is it important to different people?
How are our individual values expressed through these objects?
How do soft surfaces and materials play a role in our sense of home? What is the societal perception of home versus an individual’s?
The exploration of these questions became the basis for us to create products that reflected our personal perspectives of what defines a home that will both embody our own values, but also challenge aspects of societal pressures on what should be valued. These objects were a mixture of furniture and textiles and would express our research through form, function, colour and materiality with an emphasis on soft surfaces.
The sofa was designed in a way that no glue or screws are needed in the assembly of the individual pieces, rather pieces are held together using the friction and weight from the dry joinery interlocking with each other. This keeps the instructions needed to a minimal amount and makes assembly simple and intuitive.
Transportability was a dominant factor in the design of the sofa. With private forms of transportation becoming increasingly unaffordable and unsustainable, we wanted a piece of furniture that could be transported by public means. This is why we made the sofa design modular with each individual piece made to be light enough to be transported individually. Heavier pieces such as the back and seat boards have handholds.
By making the sofa modular, it allows for a user to adapt it to it's needs. Taking our own lives as example, when we choose to change apartments we might find ourselves with more or less space. This sofa can change the potential issue by adapting to it's surroundings. It also opens up to the possibility of expansion beyond the 2 or 3 place model.
