Local furniture production as social and ecological benefit. Bachelor Thesis in Integrated Productdesign at the University of applied Science Coburg.
Together with Michael Lechner. Supervising Professor A. Bergner.
The aim of this graduation project was to combine advantages of idustrial and handcraft production.
1.
Our work started with theory and inspiring authors such as Lucius Burckhardt, Matthew Crawford, William Morris, Richard Sennet and John Ruskin. We learned that handcraft is not only a way of manufacturing but a way of perceiving work and life itself. It enables individual and local products, is open for modifications and repairing and directly connects maker & customer. Beside these benefits, historic movements as the arts&crafts where not able to compete with mass production as handcraft was too expensive and imperfect.
2.
In a second step we researched modern role models, interviewed experts such as Wolfgang Lösche, Kathrin Pichler & Susanne Elsen and made a survey with several craftsmen. We now focused on woodworking and joineries to be able to dig deeper into the topic of combining craft and industrial production. We found out that modern manufacturing is already highly industrialized, making a lot of the traditional knowledge and work steps obsolete. As history has shown this development has erased a lot of crafts as it is not a combination but a takeover.
3.
Our goal was a combination of both economic sectors at eye level, integrating the freedom of craft and the determinition of industrial production. As for our own project, we want to support local craftsmen with industrial produced fittings that set the main measurements and guide throughout the process. We choose chairs as a product example, as they are complex in the making and therefore rarely made from modern joiners.
