Herman Kjellén

My degree project explores methodology within interior architecture and furniture design through play, social sustainability and collaboration. Through a self-developed board game in which four players role-play factory workers and collectively run and design a furniture factory, working conditions are examined in a speculative context. This method challenges hierarchies, promotes job rotation and collaboration, and asks how can a working method invite users into the design process in an engaging and enjoyable way.

These speculative workers own the factory and should therefore be involved in shaping their speculative workplace. This is important from a social sustainability perspective; by giving them agency in the creation of their workplace they gain ownership over their everyday lives and, by extension, their lives as a whole. By playing the game, the workers collaborate within a model to develop their optimal workplace. Everyone is equal within the game, with the aim of encouraging non-hierarchy in the design of the factory.