Name: Faizan Zahid

Guide: Prof. R Sandesh

Course: Industrial Design

Affordable Furniture for Primary Govt. Schools

School furniture is an integral part of any student. A major part of their activities and time during school are spent on them. They play on them, make friends on them, fight for them and sometimes fight on them. Such a huge  infrastructure plays no part in learning, and often, is not even able to do its job ie. to provide comfortable learning environment, especially in govt. schools. But comfort here in these government schools is itself a luxury, because presence of furniture itself bears a big question mark.

However, various facets of furniture design in govt. schools are so deeply rooted in the system that it’s difficult to solve each of them. Hence, as a focus of academic research it is well understood to take it as a design exercise and tackle issues only in critical design perspective.

Bicycles and wheelbarrows have been studied to understand the manufacturability in metal. Also to understand industrial aesthetics and innovation in details. The choice of materials at the start of a project, as well as being a matter of economics and design, should be made on the basis of the availability of materials and their price in the long term. This choice is very important.

The ideations at this stage were more manufacturing oriented and practical. Various ways of sitting on furniture and various materials were explored. However, the furniture lacked a certain direction and it was decided to later concentrate on one material and explore possibilities with it. Thus, for later explorations primarily, metal tube was considered majorly for structure. A mock up rig along with smaller mockups were also made for testing the final design. This helped in understanding the design flaws and ergonomic issues.

Final Design: In this design, possibility of plastic and other metal sections has been explored while trying to achieve a newer aesthetics and also to look beyond just cost as a major factor driving the design. Injection moulded parts have been used instead of flat panels and oval sections for structure which are much strong as compared to circular section. This might escalate the cost a little.