Abstract

This report is conducted to gain an insight in the Swedish furniture industry since the early 1900s and its current state. At a time when we are becoming more and more aware of that we are living in an unsustainable society of consumption and quickly puts an end to the earth’s resources, can we continue in this direction and will it be profitable from an economic-, social- and sustainability perspective?

In my examproject i have investigated these questions and are proposing a way to keep production localy with local sustainable materials in a near future. New powerful digital pruduction tools and tecniques, and research and inventions in the material feilds, are rewriting the global pruduction map.

By visiting a variety of production facilities for furniture and through a series of interviews of people connected to the industry, I have gained a deeper understanding and insight into the Swedish furniture industry and the future changes it faces. I have also read relevant literature and analyzed the chair as an object and the ergonomic conditions of sitting. In my report I want to showcase the importance of tradition and knowledge in furniture making, and bring this into a future sustainable production industry.

Additive manufacturing, or 3D printing as it is also called, allows the designer to design both the inside and outside of an object and give it unique features. This enables many of the traditional physical conditions of production technology to be re-examined.

My design proposal is a 3D printed chair designed by using Biomimicry and looking at the wasp. The wasp is chewing wood fibre and mixing it with saliva and then spits the mixture out in thin stripes and layer by layer building its nest, much in the same way as a 3D printer. As material i have proposed a filament based on nanocellulose witch is 100% biodegradible and because of its mechanical properties that are very similar to kevlar will allow physical freedom to the design.