Crates are amongst those everyday objects, too numerous, which are invisible to us and yet so useful. Composed of noble materials with a use that is nevertheless so ephemeral, intended for the log when it is still an infant, protecting our food to ensure our nutrition or being used as unflattering adjective to describe people that some consider unsightly, we are, at this servant object, truly ungrateful people.
Moreover, this ancestor of the contemporary “packaging” is one of the proudest representatives of our consumer society so necessary and urgent to question. However, should it be considered consumable? Isn’t it time to give it back a little bit of love and sublimity? By using a design approach, can’t we create beautiful objects made from “upcycled” crates ? This is the question that I asked the first year students from “École des Beaux-Arts de Toulon” (ESADTPM) as part of a one-week design workshop which took place in March 2024.
On top of exploring the poetic potential of materiality in the design process, that exercice helped students to better undertand the technical constraints of woodworking and the necessity of making with care.