Furniture Design Applying the Concept of Companion Animal

• Main Authors: Ming-Ying Lee, 李明穎
• Other Authors: Chu-Hsu Chien
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2014
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/44502509989045685884

碩士 === 實踐大學 === 工業產品設計學系碩士班 === 102 === Nowadays in our society there are more and more people who have pets. Pets have become important member in modern families. This tendency seemed to represent the current living condition and the need of love in modern life. Human relies on the emotional connection with pets. Thus, the concept of the “companion animal” has developed, gradually taking over the term of “pet”, and become the new name of the animal in our life. In the current society, the definition of “home” not only includes the living companion animals, but also the non-living objects, such as furniture. Those non-living furniture has also become the important object to compose the interaction and the atmosphere between the tenants and their living environments. This design series will focus on the concept of “companion animal” as the spirits of creation, with hope to create the interesting “living” furniture under this concept. In this design, we will first discuss the concept of the “companion animal” and its development. We will observe and analyze this concept from the animation. Secondly, we will take the interactions between the host and his/her companion animal and the adventures they experienced together from the animation and the emotional connection between human and their pets as examples to discuss how human establish the relationship between themselves and companion animals/objects around them. We will analyze the “animal-like” design works to understand those elements and principles as design reference to develop the concept of “Companion Animal” to apply on the furniture design finally. The actual design in this thesis will use Taiwanese mammal as subjects applying with the design principle developed from the animal characters in the animation. Using local and natural materials, we will present two designs of animal-model furniture, one using Formosan Sambar and one using Formosa mountain dog as the characters. Through modeling, materials-choosing and fabrication process, we would like to create the objects in daily life with accompanying effects inspired by the image and imaginations from animals. The goal is to make the furniture become the warm, friendly and humorous housemate. These designs and creations will also present in an exhibition and will be evaluated and verified by the experts.