With their own gallery currently closed for renovations the Design Department of the Universität der Künste, UdK, Berlin relocated across the city for Berlin Design Week 2025 to the Feldfünf project space where under the title AAAAH! die UdK! they presented UnDogmatiK, a showcase of works realised in context of semester projects at the institution, a showcase which included a very pleasing wiedersehen with the chairs from the Find Your Footprint project we first met in context of Passagen Interior Design Week Cologne 2025, and We Command a Better Future, We Shift Perspectives & We Design, a presentation of 11 recent Product Design graduation projects from which our pick, and while accepting that picking one from the 11 as your pick wasn't the focus, the goal or the purpose of the presentation, rather engaging with the positions inherent in all 11 was, but which we did nonetheless, was Standard; Non Standard by Gloriana Valverde.
Projects seeking meaningful uses for waste wood ain't new.
Projects seeking to develop a standardised joint as the basis for furniture families ain't new.
But the two together?
We're not saying is new, even if we are struggling to name another projects that combines the two; are very much saying that Standard; Non Standard tends to imply that such projects should be as common as those seeking meaningful uses for waste wood and those seeking to develop a standardised joint as the basis for furniture families alone.
Starting from considerations on furniture as a throwaway commodity and the necessity of resolving that reality and, if one so will, developing an argument that encourages us to hold on to our furniture rather than replace it whenever a new t**** is self-importantly announced, and infinitely, unthinkingly, echoed, on social media, Gloriana Valverde proceeded in a three pronged approach: one aesthetic, one material, one constructional.
From which the absolute delight is the latter, being as it is based upon nothing more technically advanced than a wedge-pin crafted from the same waste wood as the objects. Technically two wedge-pins crafted from waste wood that sit snug either side of a length of wood within a hole cut in another piece of wood and thus hold the whole thing tight. Or at least we presume its does, we couldn’t actually sit upon the works on show and so can't comment on the security of the construction, but see no reason to doubt it, the wedge-pin principle being in itself not new.
A wedge-pin that in many regards, certainly we'll argue, is an improvement on the Fingerzinken, finger joints, of the Ulmer Hocker: on the one hand, and while still involving a great deal of precision and care, it is technically less advanced, requires simpler tools, and is thereby more accessible as a production process, is in many regards reminiscent of the Windsor Chair makers of yore who inserted rods of green wood in holes cut in green wood boards and waited till the wood dried to an unbreakable joint, and on the other hand, primarily, because where a wedge-pin is inserted, a wedge-pin can be removed.
Gloriana talks of removal for repair, we'll happily and gladly accept that and approve of that, but will talk much more about removal for reconfiguration, that other important reason alongside the tyranny of t***** people dispose of furniture: it no longer fits with their needs. An inevitable development in any life that we must predict, must respond to before it arises, and of which readily transformable and reconfigurable furniture, all objects of daily use, is one of the most elegant answers.
Thus, for us, with its simple wedge-pin construction and the possibility of a near endless reconfiguration into an equally near endless array of object typologies that thereby makes it responsive to the demands of life, yours and ours, Standard; Non Standard stands as a very nice example of furniture design as being less about creating an object as about creating a framework for the development of objects. Which, admittedly, is the sort of project that always delights us whenever they cross our paths, of which we will never tire and which whenever we see causes us to wonder why so many designers design furniture objects. What are you doing? Systems, frameworks, processes are what you should be doing!
Yet for all that we always delight in such projects, the simplicity of Gloriana's material for the joint, its ease of production and lightness of footprint increases that delight to a gentle whoop.
And a project that, as older readers will already have predicted, we believe is crying out for an open-design launch. As ever when we hijack projects that are nothing to do with us and demand an open-design launch, which we do a lot, the responsible designer, i.e. Gloriana, may disagree with us, may take umbrage at us suggesting it. But we believe in not only the power but the necessity of the sort of lo-cost, lo-tech, local production inherent in Standard; Non Standard, something it can only truly achieve in an open-design context. And also believe furniture design isn't a commercial discipline, that's the furniture industry, rather furniture design is a cultural discipline and the products of its practice must therefore primarily be approached as culture goods for all.
You may disagree, Gloriana may disagree, but that remains our position.
In terms of Gloriana's other two prongs, aesthetics and material, those essentially come down to personal taste, and thus in context of the presented objects are an irrelevance, what's import is the construction.
Whereby, yes, any project that enables a meaningful use of a waste material is to be welcomed, and we did also like the aesthetic.
Standard; Non Standard by Gloriana Valverde can be viewed as part of the exhibition AAAAH! die UdK! at Feldfünf, Fromet-und-Moses-Mendelssohn-Platz 7–8, 10969 Berlin until Sunday May 18th
Gloriana Valverde doesn't appear to have a website but can be found on Instagram @gloriana__valverde
Further information on the Design Department at the UdK Berlin can be found at https://design.udk-berlin.de
Further details on Berlin Design Week can be found at https://berlindesignweek.com
