Scope of furniture design has changed as significant developments have taken place in the kind of materials used, digital and analogue equipment as well as tools and production conditions, says Sanjay Saxena
Furniture and spatial design is about planing spaces for homes, workplaces, institutions, urban spaces, exhibition and presentation design. Interior design and the furniture is like a cultural phenomenon to designing spaces which acts as a setting for lifestyle and the statement of identity, from the conceptual plan to the solid development of structure.
Aspiring designers must learn to work with many applications; they need to develop a clear professional, theoretic and creative foundation with complete knowledge of the procedures, techniques and expressions associated with the design of space and furniture. Good designers must develop methods that enable them to work in an experimental, independent, and artistic manner. Furniture and space design must amalgamate aesthetics, culture, history, procedures, manifestation and material, purpose and visualisation.
The aesthetics and ergonomics remain as essential constituents in the manner of expression of this discipline. The process of design engages the creative and instinctive aspects of the design procedure as well as functional and methodological aspects with tactical design, principled considerations and significance for society.
An in-depth knowledge of the role of materials and technology with purposeful properties and aesthetic possibilities is significantly required from a furniture designer. Furniture and space design originates from the key areas of furniture design. Construction of furniture without plans is nothing new or unheard of, but it is never advised. It’s better to set out into a project with a good plan. This helps you to purchase the precise quantity of lumber, and it would help to head off many issues early in the progression.
A design can start with a sketch on a paper, but finally it must be converted into something that can be used for creation of measured pieces. There are a number of methods to go about sketch up and other computer aided design (CAD) programmes are more and more popular among professionals and hobbyists for furniture designing.
These programmes are available in a range of prices, from low to high based on the competency levels of software. They are meant for consumer friendly desktop applications to the industrial-grade applications. As users have been ever increasing, so as the capabilities of these software programmes with enhancements and newer versions.
Most of these programmes offer to render designs in 3D or color parts with wooden grain. If you are reluctant to CAD programmes, there is pencil and paper approach always available. It is very important for a furniture designer to give due consideration to form, function, and joinery, a design that looks very nice constitutes only one part of the process whereas stability and strength is the other key factor.
While designing a custom furniture item it is necessary that you select joinery that is sturdy enough to support its intended use. like, a chair built with fragile seat-to-leg joinery is possibly not something you will like to sit on. Think about the purpose of a piece of furniture, and ensure that the design accommodates that. A basic set of principles is always followed in furniture design, like the golden ratio, a mathematical formula occurring naturally which has been used to design everything from the Parthenon to the highboy. These formulas help to get started, however they shouldn’t be the guiding force in the process of design.
In case of any doubt, mock it up as sometimes it is hard to clearly recognise a furniture piece from its drawing. However a three-quarter view may not be enough to tell the whole story. Therefore full size or to scale mock ups can be a amazing visual aid to assist you refine your design. Today, the scope of furniture design is wider as significant developments have taken place in the areas of new materials, digital and analogue equipments as well as tools and production conditions, The design today has to compliment new lifestyles, work conditions and the type of communication signals expected from design of space and furniture.
(The writer is head of operations, AD The Design School)