Sutra: Timeless multi purpose furniture design

Sutra by Emily Guthrie

Sutra is modular furniture that comes with multiple utility and fits to any purpose and idea according to the convenience of the user. The main idea being that, as time passes so does the functionality of things around us. Today, what we need as a coffee table tomorrow it might become redundant and be required as a shelving system. Most furniture pieces however are not capable to incorporate these changes in life style and thus have to be discarded causing wastage of resources. But the Sutra comes out a winner in all such emerging lifestyle situations.

Originally packed as a shelving unit, the Sutra can serve as a bedside table, a coffee table, shelving unit, a bench or any other stylized furniture unit making it a multipurpose unit, especially helpful for students or professionals who have to frequently shift homes or those indulging in recurrent room makeovers and modifying room decors. It can be used in a singular form or as a collection of more than two to get a unified decoration theme.

Sutra was the outcome of a class competition at the Metropolitan State College of Denver in which the sales director of the local Design Within Reach participated in judging. Designed by Emily Guthrie, it went ahead to get chosen as the best show to be up from the class and was also featured in the DWR catalog. The shelving unit functions in a variety of uses so that the user can buy two more of the same unit to put together an array rearranged and refitted over time to fulfill more purposes.

Aimed for small run production, the product can be put together in small easy steps with not much professional backing. The interior of the Sutra is made of 7 S-shape profiles of medium density fiberboard, cut out by the CNC and enabled with steel acorn nuts to secure them collectively with steel spacers on threads.

Facilitated with walnut veneer on the exterior of the frame, the remaining gaps were done in with urethane foam instead of solid medium density fiberboard making the shelf lightweight and also lowering the cost of the product. The physical prototype thus created by the industrial designer provides a function for almost every room in the house and adjusts to every need and time change.

Thanks Emily Guthrie!

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