Circular Design: OneOff furniture industry, design strategy and tools for sustainability

Treball desenvolupat dins el marc del programa 'Circular Design: Learning for Innovative Design for Sustainability (L4IDS)'. [ANGLÈS] This is a European project funded by Erasmus+ under the name “Circular Design: Learning for Innovative Design for Sustainability” The partner of this project was the company One Off. One Off is a creative, design driven company, concerned with the design and production of high-quality furniture and lighting. Bespoke furniture is One Off’s speciality, that’s why every one of their commissions has to have a unique identity. They frequently have the opportunity to work on large furniture. One Off’s work is often quite sculptural and reflect aspects of their locations. During these projects the company will either work directly with the client or with the client’s architects or interior designers, where they take the product from concept stage through to final production. They also try to create pieces that are efficient in their material use and sustainable from a design perspective. Throughout the three months internship we were collaborating with One Off dealing with the design and production of these bespoke products – to design a take back system as well as reusable products/parts/materials. The mentioned challenges had to be developed on two levels. For the system-level intervention, we were expected to look into the awareness and willingness of clients and outsourced producers to adopt such take-back systems and to steer them towards more sustainable ways of consumption behaviour. For the product-level intervention, we needed to consider the requirements of the take-back system we designed and develop design solutions concurrently. As a solution of the proposed challenge what we made was: At first, we wrote a guide named “Circular Guide”, to aid design consultancies to strive for a Circular Economy. Focusing on the development of Circular products and shifting their business models to a service-oriented one. To help One Off transition their business alongside using the guide, we developed a tool. The “MatGuide”, a material database tool. It will allow design consultants to have a better more informative and educational conversation with their clients about materials and their impact. The MatGuide visualises the environmental implications associated with material production, processing and transportation as well as end of life potentials. It can be used in the briefing phase to gear clients towards less harmful materials a