A typewriter transformed into a dish rack, drumsticks finding new life as a fruit bowl, X-rays turned into lampshades and bicycle parts that become a contemporary lounge chair. Design Indaba Expo wants to see how you can give new life to old objects.
Objects and products are designed with a specific purpose or function in mind. But they all have a limited lifespan and eventually become defunct. Whether it’s rapidly changing consumer demand, the invention of new products, improved manufacturing processes or just the ravages of time, all things – it seems – are ultimately headed for the junk heap.
Designers are changing that. They see the potential of a new object within the bones of the old, giving birth to a second life.
Design Indaba is calling all designers breathing new life into old things: show us what you’ve got.
Maybe you work with discarded items and use them to create an entirely different product or perhaps you re-process old materials to manufacture something new. Whatever your technique, we want to see how you create furniture and functional home accessories from pre-existing stuff.
Submit your design to be included in the Take Two exhibition at Design Indaba Expo 2015. This is an opportunity to exhibit your work at the largest curated design festival on the African continent and be included in an exciting new feature on the expo floor.
The focus of this exhibition is specifically on furniture and functional home accessories including lights, lamps, chairs, stools, ottomans, tables, storage, vases, bowls or soft furnishings.
In our selections, we’ll be looking for these criteria:
ORIGINALITY We are looking for designs the likes of which have never been seen before.
FUNCTIONALITY The design should serve a function beyond decoration.
DESIGN PROCESS It should be evident in the object that a design process was used to reconceptualise the object and its function.We are looking for designs that are more than just a reuse of an object in its existing from, or that entail a mere surface or aesthetic change.
THEME The design needs to fit into the furniture and functional home accessories category.
AVAILABILITY The object needs to be available for display and shipped to South Africa for the exhibition in February 2015.
LOCAL AND INTERNATIONAL The Take Two exhibition is open to designers worldwide.
SIZE While there are no size limitations for the objects submitted, exhibition space constraints will be considered in the final curation.
