HOP

HOP is a chair evolving with its user. Around 42% of bulky waste in the UK is furniture, this is around 670,000 tonnes per year. With mass production, furniture got more affordable but the quality decreased simultaneously. These two facts result in a weaker emotional bond between people and their belongings. Chairs, wardrobe, tables…became bulky furniture with no value, leading people to leave them behind with no regrets if broken or stained, to follow a new trend or when moving out. Indeed, replacing them by new ones seems to be a quicker and easier way to deal with it. This phenomenon increases overconsumption and waste. Professor J.Chapman, studying the concept of emotionally durable design, explains that ‘Waste is nothing more than symptomatic of a failed user/object relationship, where insufficient empathy led to the perfunctory dumping of one by the other’. Nowadays, there is a need of mutual evolution between the consumer and the consumed.  HOP aims to respond to this new essential need, by involving and evolving with its user. It is a flat pack chair that can easily be assembled and disassembled, with possibilities to change the sitting part (color, texture, quality) at the user’s will. HOP is thus easy to carry around and follows the user’s taste and budget over time. It has been produced and commercialised during my internship at FAB Design, Paris. It was showcased at the Salon Maison et Objet, Paris, in September 2016 and January 2017.