Students from Lahti University design furniture for displacement victims

The ongoing refugee crisis and the effects of natural disaster have become increasingly important topics for designers in recent years. This is why it interested us to read Dezeen magazine’s report this week about 10 students from Lahti University of Applied Sciences in Finland and their designs for a collection of essential furniture items for victims of displacement.

The designs are the fruit of a research project called Rehome, which gave students from the school’s Institute of Design the responsibility of creating temporary products for those suddenly forced to leave their home without belongings.

“Manufactured automatically with the lowest costs possible”

One of the students, Iida Nordgren, said to Dezeen: “The main idea behind Rehome was to design temporary products that could provide an answer to humans’ primary needs when suddenly rehoused. The furniture designed within Rehome can be manufactured automatically with the lowest costs possible. For example, a cardboard bed can be manufactured around 3,500 pieces in one hour – and no tools are required for assembling.”

The students devised a list of things that they described as catering to “the most urgent human needs”, which they identified as sleeping arrangements, privacy and social interaction. This led to their decision to use low-cost materials such as plywood and cardboard, as well as to opt for a slotting method enabling each piece to be quickly and easily taken down.

Among the students’ creations were Iida Nordgren’s privacy screen that can be stretched out length-ways and width-ways in accordance with a given space, and a space divider concept by Anne Hirvonen that involves the stacking of cardboard shapes to form a sturdy partition.

Samuli Strandler also proposed a space divider, incorporating sections for the storage of belongings, while several of the designers also created beds, such as Emma Sivusalo, whose cot adapts as an infant grows. Rosa-Maria Tolvanen, meanwhile, came up with a dining table and set of stools, in recognition of the importance of displaced families still being able to eat together.

An important project amid a worsening crisis

The pieces – which, while created specifically for use by victims of displacement, have also been suggested by the designers to have a potential purpose at festivals and campsites – are on show at this year’s Helsinki Design Week, which runs until Sunday.

They are certainly pieces that provide a great degree of food for thought for our own furniture experts here at Furniture in Fashion, amid what has been a worsening refugee crisis in recent years. We hope that they will do the same for you, too.