Furniture Stereotypes Interrogated: Undertaking Design Research Yields Design Ideas

Whether looking at furniture retail stores or reading advice from interior design guide books, we can recognize that middleclass living rooms are normatively divided into sitting and dining zones, furnished by relevant furniture stereotypes, such as dining tables and chairs, display cabinets, couch and armchair sets, centre tables, etc. Even the focal point of the living room is predetermined: a television or a fireplace. Professional actors such as designers and manufacturers require the user to undertake a set of generic activities like watching television, eating, hosting, relaxing. During my elective course, students were expected to undertake surveys for undermining how respondents conduct their everyday lives and which activities their respondents would like to perform in their living rooms. Research analysis presented a wide range of responses from unconventional ones which included defining new activities and abandonment of certain stereotypes to more conformist ones like complying with the current mass-market layouts.