Cultural reflections on furniture

Culture is the social behaviours in human being’s society, but it can also influence designers and their works. If Nordic design is considered popular, can the design methodology duplicate to reflect East Asian culture? Can a design language be refined from the carrier of culture, such as architectures? By knowing more about Nordic design and East Asian culture, A good design with East Asian culture and Nordic minimalism can be made. It is a test of blending design methodology with another culture so that a successful experience can be referred and design can also become a tool to help communicate between different cultures. The starting point is different from traditional design process which comes from structure or user cases, but from a culture. History of Scandinavian design is analysed to receive the clue of the design philosophy. As a good cultural carrier, traditional architecture in East Asia can stably reflect local culture. The design language can refined from these architecture to reflect the culture. Torii, as an example, is selected. Many researches on structure and shapes are done for next form exploration. Using sketches and mockups, these elements can be transferred into a chair to reflect its inherent culture. There are relatively certain elements that can represent a certain culture in architecture. These traditional architectures provide a timeline to trace the evolution of a culture. In the meanwhile, these elements can be refined and reused. Furthermore, with the help of simple and minimalistic design philosophy, these elements are also suitable to show in a design to tell a cultural story. Even though the elements and character are different and from East Asian culture, with the same Nordic design methodology, it can still be self-adapted, natural and elegant. By expressing Asian culture in Nordic language, there could be more possible potential products designed. Thereby, design can be a new carrier or tool to modernise the old traditional culture and make these culture universally useful and attractive again. Moreover, as the same principle, this method can also be spread to other cultures and more well-designed products in accordance with local culture and living habits can appear