The world is developing every day and we continue to discover new and innovative ways to better our quality of life. A trend that everyone seems to be focused on is saving the environment, which is also known as sustainable living. Not only does this apply to our lifestyle and environment, but it also translates into design. Sustainable living is becoming more popular around the world and is a lifestyle using skillful and sensitive design. It eliminates negative environmental impact and requires renewable resources. We each have decided to research different furniture companies to broaden our knowledge of the innovative practices used in each company. Throughout our paper we will introduce each of our companies and the products and practices they use to produce sustainable furniture. Our research will show that sustainable furniture design is beneficial to consumers by allowing them to live a more environmentally friendly lifestyle as their manufacturers develop innovative ways to make renewable furniture. Company Introductions Ashley Furniture is the largest furniture manufacturer in the world. Once the CEO, Todd Wanek, informed himself of the benefits of sustainability in furniture design, he chose to alter their manufacturing process by using engineered wood opposed to lumber. For over 60 years Ashley Furniture has specialized in furniture design which has won them the title of "World-Class Furniture Manufacturer". With all of the innovation and experience in the furniture industry, they have come to be known as the "largest manufacturer of quality home furnishings". Ashley strives to achieve the best quality possible for their furniture and they are also continuously looking for ways to refine their products. After rea... ... middle of paper ... ... "Introduction to the Standard." Sustainable Forestry Iniative. Viesso, Inc., n.d. Web. 1 Dec. 2013. “Innovative Advance in Sustainability”. Wisconsin Business. Ashley Furniture, N.D. Web. Kujac, Piper. "ASK INHABITAT: Is Imported Bamboo Really Sustainable? | Inhabitat - Sustainable Design Innovation, Eco Architecture, Green Building." Inhabitat Sustainable Design Innovation Eco Architecture Green Building ASK INHABITAT Is Imported Bamboo Really Sustainable Comments. Inhabitat, 17 Feb. 2007. Web. 9 Nov. 2013. . "LEED." U.S. Green Building Council. USGBC, 2013. Web. 7 Nov. 2013. . "Minnesota Department of Health." Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) in Your Home. Minnesota Government, n.d. Web. 9 Nov. 2013. .
Dakota Jackson is considered to be one of America’s leading furniture designers. Having originally started his career as a magician, it is no surprise that Jackson’s designs are considered to be marvellous works of engineering and his early works even included engineering illusions, thus reflecting his background in magic. In 1989, Dakota Jackson entered the mass production furniture market with the Ke-Zu seating collection. Continuing in this mass production market, in 1991 Jackson introduced the ‘Vik-ter’ chair. This ‘bio- morphic’ stacking chair was first introduced at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in Manhattan. The Vik-ter chair’s “highly production oriented” design features a weld- ed-steel frame that curves aswell as a tapered cherry-plywood laminated seat. The design is said to be able to be produced in seven minuets, and received a silver award for environ- mental design in the 1992 Industrial Design Excellence award.
Known as one the largest global home-furnishing retailers, IKEA currently has over 139,000 employees located in 53 countries and generates roughly 39.3 billion US dollars in annual sales (IKEA, 2014). Ingvar Kamprad began selling different types of items and founded the company in Agunnaryd, Sweden in 1943. Kamprad found that his greatest entrepreneurial opportunity was in furniture. Many households at that time were changing from receiving furniture that was handed down to desiring new, inexpensive, and stylish furniture. Kamprad was able to find a business opportunity to change the current social situation since a lot of the furniture was priced high at the time. He wanted to be able to offer his customers a wide selection of functional and well-designed furniture at a price many could afford (Bartlet & Nanda, 1996). Kamprad had a better understanding of what the customer desired and how to go about meeting those desires at prices that were lower than other furniture companies, in turn creating a competitive environment (De Kluyver & Pearce, 2011).
ForIn the past couple of years, IKEA has been deeply involved with the issues of the environment. In the article, “IKEA’s
Each category will be analyzed using IKEA student info website, IKEA group corporate website, resources from University of Phoenix library and articles from magazines. The key questions that the author will address are
Years ago Ikea committed to sustainability, its vision “to create a better everyday life for the many people” and its values standing at the base of this primary goal. The company seems to improve itself and make big steps toward this sustainable approach year by year, offering its customers a great value for money spend on all of their furniture products. The concept itself characterizes well its Swedish ruts, where individuals are accustomed to live a life
IKEA know as a unique furniture business that involved the customer’s needs with the potential on the factory floor. IKEA have owns abilities to develops its products directly based on the understanding and knowledge about the life and home challenges among the customer’s needs with low cost and high quality product. The skilled suppliers create the furniture that can adapt with the product size and constructions that enable them to produce, package and provided delivered stock in proficient way to all customers. It also put effort in developing, improvement and save resources. Apart f...
Sustainable design has steadily become the architecture catch phrase of the day, being thrown around to make us aware that everything we “design” has an environmental burden. Many designers, architects and builders have installed the “idea of green” into their buildings to demonstrate a potential to improve performance and reduce costs through sustainable strategies. One of the main methods of creating sustainability in buildings is with passive design. It has been applied by architects and engineers to achieve highly thermally insulated structures with low energy use. With rising prices and political pressures energy economy has become a key feature in a lot of contemporary buildings. Green star is Australia’s primary “green” large building rating system, evaluating many different aspects of a building and its construction. It sets out to judge a building on its environmental merits and to see if it performs to world class standards of passive design, giving them a number to reflect its viability to be called green, with 6 being the top number. It is important for our learning environments to help us push contemporary ideas and expose its students to relevant topics, so the University of Adelaide set about to take these principles of passive and sustainable design and create Australia's first 6 star, Green star rated education building, Innova21.
Green furniture is usually made of natural resources and recycled material such as wood mostly bamboo which is technically a grass. The advantage of using eco-friendly furniture is mainly the reduction of chemicals and volatile organic compounds released, which results in clean air. Additionally, local organic food would be introduced in the menu. This is of great benefit to the environment as organic food is grown with no pesticides or fertilizers and therefor petroleum products are not used as much. Apart from being non-harmful to the environment, the introduction of organic foods would also bring about a healthier lifestyle to the guests of the hotel. Also, reusable items mainly including dishes, cutlery and cups would be provided at the restaurant. This will result in the reduction of waste from landfills leaving no dangerous pollutants in the
Web Ecoist - Stephanie. (n.d.). Building with Bamboo: 13 Super Sustainable Structures. Retrieved from Web Ecoist: http://webecoist.momtastic.com/2011/06/20/building-with-bamboo-13-super-sustainable-structures/
Design has major impact with concerns to environmental qualities. This field is a direct study of the relationship between behaviouristic actions of its inhabitants. Designers constantly interact with people and communicate to solve the needs of their clients regardless of large or small scale projects. Analysis is key in combining creativity with managerial design solutions. These outside-of-the-box designers have the ability to create beautiful, safe and functional and aesthetically pleasing spaces using common factors, designing for communities as well as,
Yan, J. & Plainiotis, S. (2006): Design for Sustainability. Beijing, China: Architecture and Building Press.
IKEA is more than a furniture store they are a company driven by values (IKEA, 2014). The company seeks to make their consumers lives easier by providing them with modern, innovative, inexpensive products which they use to tackle daily home activities. IKEA Group has 298 stores in 26 different countries (IKEA, 2014). The company’s vision is “to create a better everyday life for the many people” (IKEA, 2014, para 1). Using innovative techniques for creating, producing, and marketing their products IKEA can provide consumers with durable products for reason...
Sustainable buildings are becoming somewhat of a necessity in the world today. As the demand for green building develops, so does the demand for green building materials. Just as the old techniques and building materials seem to disappear in the assembly of things, they are now making a come back. Green building focuses on the efficiency of major resources like water and energy. As the cost for sustainable materials and products are on the decline, building green seems to be the most cost effective kind of design and construction. Looking specifically at green materials and their impact on the production of structures, it is evident that they are a prime choice for building material. The use of green materials should be promoted because they are better for the environment, more healthful for the consumer, and better for the economy.
Ecology issues have become of greater importance world-wide, increasing the value of eco-friendly produced furniture.
Furniture adds soul to a home décor as we can see that it is not merely practical and functional in its function, but has an artistic impact to it. In each generation it has its own style which comes from earlier event of its social structure. Furniture has been excelling with time to become family heirloom for the future generations.