Hello! We are ‘1:1’

We are a team of master’s students from a range of different backgrounds, but all have an interest in multifunctional design.

From left to right:

Alina: I love designing furniture because I can bring my ideas to life and use them myself.

Gwyneth: I love designing tangible objects that can be used in multiple ways.

Shahd: I love the concept of a piece of multifunctional furniture that can adapt to different needs.

Akshay: I love details and enjoy any chance I get to do a mock-up.

Saul: I really enjoy modelmaking and using physical models to develop designs.

1:20 Site Model

To help with the design process and understand how the space can be used, we've created a simple 1:20 model using measurements taken from our site visit earlier in the year.

As part of the action weeks, this model, along with its digital twin, will be used to iteratively test the multifunctional furniture we create before scaling up to a 1:1 prototype.

Day 1: Initial Concepts

It's been a great afternoon developing concepts and making paper models, investigating materials and form.

Day 1: Brief and Introductions

Great turnout for the first day of MSA Live, introducing the FDN, BA1 and BA2 students to the brief and discussing initial ideas for multi-use furniture.

Day 2: Guest Lecture

This morning we had a guest lecture from Angus, ex-student of the MSA who now works at Tim Denton, a local bespoke furniture design company. It was great to hear from Angus about the process and reasoning behind his work, and review our initial designs with him.

Day 2: Furniture 4 Reuse

This afternoon we explored the Furniture4Reuse space at UoM to investigate possible materials and components that may be used in our designs of multi-functional furniture, reusing existing tables and chairs in novel ways.

Day 3: Model Testing

This morning we've been creating 1:20 scale models of our designs, working up details and exploring arrangements. Great ideas from everyone in the team!

Day 3: Model Review

After spending the morning developing individual concepts, everyone presented their ideas to the group, giving feedback to each other's designs. From here we will be splitting into two groups to develop two designs to present to the collaborators.

Day 4: Presentation Preparation

This morning we worked in our groups to develop our designs into more detailed drawings and 3D models before discussing and presenting to the collaborators.

Day 4: Collaborator Meeting

This afternoon we presented our concepts and designs to the collaborators, Sally and Ecaterina from SHOP Preston, we had great feedback and look forward to developing a final design next week

Day 5: Full scale prototype

This morning we split into teams, working on assembly instructions for the final piece of furniture and creating templates to work from in the workshop this week.

Day 5: Instruction Manual

Following an illustrator workshop with Alina, everyone worked up some Ikea-style assembly visualisations of the final design for an instruction manual we are creating to go alongside the 1:1 prototype.

Day 6: Workshop Day

This morning we began producing the 1:1 prototype in the workshop.

Day 6: Workshop Day

After cutting most of the pieces out this morning, we began hand sanding and refining the pieces to ensure that they fit correctly, test assembling the exhibition stand.

Day 6: Workshop Day

As well as producing a 1:1 prototype, today we created a 1:20 model of the final design, experimenting with colour.

Day 7: More Models!

Today we made more models to add to our suite, and test assembled the 1:1 stool, here are the 1:20 on the 1:5 on the 1:1.

Day 7: Test assembly

With every piece of the prototype now cut and sanded, we assembled the stool, bench and exhibition stand to test tolerances and improvements we can make over the final two days.

Day 8: Final touches

This morning the team worked on the cushion and fixings for the display stand, researching weaving patterns before settling on a checkerboard design.

Day 8: Studio photos

With the models completed, this afternoon we took studio photos of the final prototypes.

Day 9: Final Images

Today we're finalising the booklet and taking photos of our final prototypes, here's a sneak preview of the pieces...

Day 9: Stool Assembly

This gif shows the assembly process for our prototype stool.

Day 9: Team Photo

And that's a wrap for MSA Live 24! Well done to everyone for taking part :)