Camilla Figueroa

What did you want to explore?

It is about the first meeting with a person and how we quickly pigeonhole each other based on first impressions. Judging a person is something everyone does, even if one doesn't mean to hurt their feelings. One assumes something about a person – based on what the person has said or is wearing. But how can I incorporate this in design?

What has this resulted in?

It has resulted in a travel trunk, formerly called an America trunk. It is an object to be used by rootless people who are fond of moving around. Especially people who do not know what they want in life or who moved because of work or love. 

The trunk contains several small trunks and boxes of different materials with different characteristics. It is a multipurpose piece of furniture that will also help my users to avoid the unnecessary purchase of furniture and items that one has for just a short period of life, which ends up in the rubbish.

What does this mean for society?

Enormous amounts of paper are being produced, even in our digital age, and we are constantly buying things that have cardboard packaging. Paper waste and especially corrugated cardboard are voluminous and take up space, as well as being fire hazards. In 2018, each of us threw away an average of 426 kilograms of household waste. This means we throw away twice as much compared to 20 years ago, and we recycle less. Each household throws away three kilos less than in 2013. This can be seen in figures published by Statistics Norway.

A lot of cardboard packaging comes from products that contain a lot of packaging. A report on Ikea's website shows that they received 915 billion visitors globally. There turnover was 36.4 billion Euros.

Although Ikea is good regarding fair trade and is skilled at using its resources to design products from sustainable materials such as bioplastic and recycled woodchip and wood, they still use a lot of plastic and cardboard in their packaging. Many students use their first student grant on furniture from Ikea to decorate their rooms. This is furniture that they then throw away when their studies are completed or it simply becomes too worn when the semester is over. This means a new bus trip to Ikea.

The need for a product that is both functional and practical when one moves is lost. Especially when one wishes to avoid cardboard and plastic. It applies to students who move to a new city, young families who move from apartments to suburban houses, pensioners who move into old people’s homes and also today’s modern nomads, who move because of work or love. As a designer, it is important to take into account the user's wishes and choose materials that are not harmful to the environment. In my Master's thesis, I also want my object to appeal to as many people as possible. I think that if the object can help in at least one person's everyday life, it can easily reach out to many more.

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