Identifying Unspoken Desires and Demands: A Collection of Design Ideas for Living Room Furniture and Zones

In this study, the outcomes of a particular elective course — Furniture Design and Everyday Life — were analyzed and discussed, in which the students were given an assignment regarding the development of design ideas for living room units. The common living room discourse established by professional actors such as designers, manufacturers, and marketing experts requires the user to undertake a set of generic activities like watching television, eating, hosting, relaxing, sitting, etc. However, one of the important tenets of design thinking is applying user-based research for discovering unarticulated user needs and providing a source of inspiration for design practice. Therefore, it was hypothesized that the emphatic approach of design thinking would contribute well to the area of living room furniture design, which has been a realm often dominated by stereotypes and normative configurations. During my elective course, industrial design sophomores were expected to develop design ideas considering the research analysis regarding respondents’ desires and demands in the living room context. This article overlays the students’ design ideas for new zones, furniture units and products that addressed the activities of studying, dancing, exercising, pet rearing and playing PlayStation games.