A Unique Design: Symbiotic Objects

Reimagine and reflect the relationship between people and objects… Symbiotic Objects aims to make people reimagine and reflect on their relationship to everyday objects such as tables and chairs. Through making and experimentation, it questions: What if you had a symbiotic relationship to daily objects? If this symbiosis existed would we find more meaning and possibilities in everyday objects? Would we be inclined to throw them away so readily? And could we eliminate unnecessary waste in the spirit of a sustainable world?..

 

Through a table, chair and lamp that require a person to complete them, Symbiotic Objects explores a new relationship with people and objects exploring how the relational characteristic of product and furniture design, in specific everyday moments and interactions can provide a method to challenge cultures of consumption and obsolescence at a time of global environmental crisis.

 

Designed by Central Saint Martins graduate Xiang Guan, the Symbiotic Objects collection aims to encourage users to rethink the relationship they have with the objects that surround them and can only function when they come into contact with a person.

 

The Symbiotic Objects includes a desk and chair that can’t stand without support, and a lamp that only turns on when worn as a hat with its helmet-shaped base slipping over the head. It only lights up once attached to a person. According to the designer, these attachments encourage better posture.

 

Xiang Guan created the pieces for the Industrial Design masters programme at Central Saint Martins in London. He presented them at the school’s degree show, where he claimed visitors found the furniture “much more comfortable to use than they expected”.

 

https://vimeo.com/225274528

 

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