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CURRENT WORK
Advanced Design Conference 2026
Cross-Cultural Sustainability: A Practice-Based Framework for Adaptive Furniture and Lighting
Accepted for the 2026 Advanced Design Conference in Como, Italy, this practice-based contribution presents a framework for adaptive furniture and lighting based on multi-aesthetic variation, user participation, material circulation and culturally responsive production.
The framework approaches furniture and lighting not as fixed objects, but as adaptable systems that can be renewed and reconfigured for different users, interiors, materials and cultural contexts while retaining a coherent design identity. Sustainability is explored not only through material choice, modularity, assembly and disassembly, but also through the capacity of objects to remain desirable, adaptable and in use over time.
Powderbox and Fabricated demonstrate this approach through mathematical and multi-aesthetic variation, interchangeable surfaces and reconfiguration. ZERO WASTE — Reshore connects the framework more explicitly to surplus textiles, local waste streams and material narratives.
Currently under development, Piles of Fabric explores a chair shell made from local textile waste, combined with a simplified reupholstery system using personal, local or regional fabric remnants. Through material, use and visible renewal, the project communicates the scale and continued value of textile waste.
PRESS AND CONTACT
Press and professional enquiries
For press images, project information or interview requests, please contact:
Charlotte Friis Design — Home Décor Brand of the Year 2024, Prestige Awards, UK.
POWDERBOX
A foundational case in the development of Circular Surface Variation.
Powderbox makes the framework's logic immediately visible: flexibility does not require a neutral base. Its distinctive form combines two loose cushions with a defined collection of thirty reversible covers, each carrying a different textile on either side. Closed, it functions as a stackable stool; opened, as a chair. Selection, reversal and repositioning of the covered cushions between seat and back generate 1,740 visual pairings, making mathematical variation visible through use.
Users can create individual compositions while the chair remains recognisable. The updateable cover collection allows selections to respond to different cultural or regional contexts and changing preferences over time. Individual covers can be replaced without replacing the chair, extending the relevance and desirability of one coherent object.
FABRICATED
Spatial textile variation in lighting
Fabricated integrates adaptability into a wall-mounted or suspended lighting system. A visually neutral cylindrical core provides a stable base, while long, loose, translucent image-bearing bands create hanging sections and overlapping layers. An artwork may comprise one or several bands of different widths and lengths configured as an integrated work.
Selection, dimensions, order, layering, surface expression and arrangement create combinatorial and multi-aesthetic possibilities. Layering, overlap and illumination generate depth, colour mixing, image shift and atmosphere, while lit and unlit states create distinct expressions. Artworks can be selected and exchanged, and the bands can be reused and recombined without replacing the lighting core.
ZERO WASTE — RESHORE
Reversible, rearrangeable patchwork and material narrative.
Regional material variants: GB-SCT Chair — oyster shells; CN Chair — silk remnants; FR Chair — grape remnants.
ZERO WASTE — Reshore extends adaptive identity through Circular Surface Variation, material narrative and integrated material and spatial communication. Ten reversible and rearrangeable patchwork cushions generate 1,024 configurations through flipping, with further variation through rearrangement. Individual cushions can later be replaced or renewed, enabling repeated surface change within the same chair system.
Patchwork functions as both object system and communication strategy: visible remnants make renewal understandable, while differences in colour, texture and origin make local waste streams visible through the surface. The raised title ZERO WASTE and the debossed material content and origin communicate the relationship between the project's statement and its material reality directly through the object.
PILES OF FABRIC - Reducing fabric waste, one pile at a time
Textile remnants, replaceable cushions and simplified re-upholstery.
Piles of Fabric combines a defined two- or three-cushion surface system with combinatorial variation, a waste-derived shell and textile renewal. Supplied without permanent upholstery, the chair allows users to cover and repeatedly renew the cushions with personal remnants or locally sourced textiles. Its surface can evolve from person to person, place to place and over time while the chair's recognisable form remains unchanged.
Communication is embedded in the title, material, function and visible renewal. Local or regional fabric waste gives the shell a structural role, while discarded textiles remain in use through simplified no-sew upholstery. The title turns this process into an almost activist design argument: reducing fabric waste, one pile at a time.
OTHER WORKS
Examples of previous furniture, lighting, product and spatial design projects
Children's Paper Chair
An interactive chair incorporating a continuous roll of paper for drawing, play and preserving children's drawings. Winner of international Silver A' Design Award
Storybook Chair
An interactive, transformable chair for children aged 1–5. Inspired by the opening of a book, it unfolds into adjustable seating and incorporates spaces for drawings, photographs and changing stories.
TimePeace
A rotating 24-hour fan clock that visualises the passage of a full day. Closed, the fan indicates midnight; fully opened, it marks midday. At 6 a.m. it forms a half-moon to the right, and at 6 p.m. a half-moon to the left.
Daisy Chair / AppleSkin Chair
A chair formed from a single folded sheet, internally supported by thin spring steel. The original leather version features traditional tattoo graphics, while the vegan AppleSkin version carries botanical and apple-themed tattoo motifs.
Rosette Divinity / Last Eden
The original Rosette Divinity features classical figures illuminated from within, with a red pull cord that switches the light on and off. The new Last Eden variant, currently in development, transforms the ceiling rosette into an overflowing abundance of fruit.
Unfold
An adjustable floor lamp with a pleated shade that changes both form and function: lowered for warm, intimate ambient lighting and raised for reading.
Rosette Pendant
Part of the SaloneSatellite Permanent Collection, established by Salone del Mobile.Milano.
Pearl Light
A floor light formed as an oversized string of pearls, with illuminated spheres connected by smaller black beads.
Work/Life
A functional table incorporating an oversized clock face, reflecting how work, family life and everyday routines continually share and compete for time.