Abstract
This master’s thesis focuses on a daybed with a unique folding mechanism, which has been passed down through the maternal line of my family, now spanning four generations.
Methodically, it is grounded in practice-based research, drawing on direct investigation of the daybed's mechanism, genealogical inquiry and theoretical literature, a combination that positions the mechanism itself as a primary site of research and knowledge production. The research materialises that the mechanism is the primary reason for daybeds’ continued existence. The thesis argues that the daybed was, or rather is, durable because the mechanism's functional and spatial versatility enabled the daybed to remain relevant across shifting domestic and social contexts: the durable mechanism made it versatile and the versatility made it durable across generations. The breakdown of the non-structural elements, however, raised a generational threshold. In its deteriorated state the daybed could not have been passed on. To "future" the object required understanding how it worked. Drawing on this case, the research proposes a broader argument: that the durability of objects like this daybed cannot be reduced to its material composition alone, but is instead produced relationally, through the “fit” between an object’s affordances and the conditions that surround it over time. Notably, my own circumstances, including access to design education and fabrication infrastructure, constitute one such condition, and are themselves part of what makes continuation possible at this stage in the object’s trajectory.
As a designer undertaking practice-based research, I respond to the material deterioration by applying the same logic observed in the mechanisms itself: continuation through the potential of transformation, rather than a fixed state. In this sense, the thesis proposes design not as the pursuit of a static outcome but as a process-oriented practice that cultivates understanding and knowledge production. Archiving, within this framework, is reframed as a tool for mediation during transformation, rather than a gesture towards closure.
The mechanism of this daybed is the lens through which the project's questions are developed and in acknowledgement of its eventual obsolescence, the research undertakes a non-invasive reengineering process while the mechanism remains intact. Through a combination of methods, it recovers construction documentation sufficient for future repair and is proposed as a replicable approach applicable to the restoration of analogous objects. The act of documentation is thus understood as a form of care directed toward an uncertain future, one in which the daybed may outlast the materials it currently inhabits.
In doing so, this contributes to knowledge practices that increasingly seek to account for the interrelationships among diverse (non-human and more-than-human) parties and processes in a non-
reductionist manner.