Durban – Pushing Art Deco into the contemporary world of design, Durban University of Technology (DUT) students created prototypes for dual purpose, flat-pack furniture – using their digital prowess.

Durban, the Art Deco capital of South Africa, is dotted with buildings boasting visual drama, strong geometric shapes and bold colours, adding to the city’s architectural heritage.

Playing on the significance this style of visual arts, architecture and design has on our city, DUT students have worked on an annual project with the Durban Art Deco Society (DADS) for the past decade.

This year’s brief required students to design Art Deco inspired furniture pieces. The designs, executed on AutoCAD and Google SketchUp, needed to be flat-pack and dual-purpose. The exhibition: “Dual Purpose, Flat-Pack Furniture Prototypes: Inspired By The Art Deco Style”, is currently on in Room 24 (ground floor) of the DUT City campus, until August 3.

Michelle Claire Hankinson, of Visual Communication for Interior Design at DUT, said: “We wanted to look at how to create furniture in a digital way – no crafting necessary.

“This would make the resulting product cost efficient as it would be made inexpensively. Good designs should be available to anyone.

“Nowadays, if people are going to spend a small fortune on furniture, they want to get a lot out of it, hence the dual purpose aspect which would enable the product to transform from one purpose to the next.”

Students worked with MakerSpace Durban to manufacture scaled design prototypes and made 30-second reflective videos, documenting their process and learning experiences.

DADS awarded prizes to the top three designers.

“It would be amazing to be able to get the designs built at some point,” said Hankinson.

Sourced from: The Mercury