PILE CHAIR By Fumi Masuda
by Priscilla, 04/26/07
For many people, there’s nothing worse than the thought of moving. But now at least you can find some solace in the moving process knowing that any discarded furniture may have a second life as Fumi Masuda’s stunning Pile Chair, which is built out of old and discarded furniture collected by movers. The idea came from a Japanese moving company, Mover, that provides a service to collect discarded furniture (think of all the sofas and chairs you see strewn on the sidewalk). As an alternative to disposal, the company figured that the furniture could be used as raw material for new designs, instead of the end product. Fumi Masuda’s Pile Chair emerged from a collaborative project with students and teachers from the Design Department at Tokyo Zokei University and Mover.
As of now, Pile Chair is just a prototype. But, as Scrapile has proven, the Pile Chair shows that reusing rubbish is a pretty good way of demonstrating environmental concern while producing beautiful furniture that has history and tells a story. Stay tuned this afternoon for an interview with Fumi Masuda about his sustainable design practices.
This has a feel very much like a sculpture I did once in college out of scrap foamcore from the frame shop. Glue all the foamcore together and made “plycore” that worked very well in a band saw. I have the pictures around somewhere .. .