WIP is the beginning of a series of objects investigating the role of iteration as obsolescence in design practice. The design is a collaboration between Marcus Cole & Florence Maschietto, graduates of the Royal College of Art. The term WIP (Work in Progress) is used not as a status of incompletion, but as an understanding that the chair will always remain as an iteration. This is meant not as an iteration of a design that is updated in another object, but as an iteration of itself. The objects selected for the series all form part of an existing collection of furniture pieces owned by Marcus and Florence.
Chair I explores the well-trodden notion of ‘hacking’ and introduces previously finished articles into the process by repurposing two old IKEA Stools into a chair. The simple design repositions the legs on the first stool, and reuses the legs and seat of the other stool, to act as the spine and back support of the chair. This structure then begins the slow process of evolving into a new form through the layering of papier maché strips. Each additional layer of plaster begins to gradually offset the form and soften its edges.
“We like the idea of taking a universally recognised utilitarian object such as the IKEA flat pack furniture and decontextualising it into a one-off, evolving sculptural piece.”
This post shows Chair I at the point in which it has been covered in two layers of papier maché. Over time it will continue to grow and change with no clear end in sight.
Each iteration is documented and photographed as if it were its final form in order to separate the often less curated photography style that accompanies the presentation of ‘work in progress’.
