Furniture Building Workshops

Volumes Design Library, JK Gill Building, Portland, OR

In a series of hands-on workshops, participants will help build out the Volumes Design Library using Enzo Mari’s visionary approach to learning through making—constructing furniture and fixtures together as an act of collective design, education, and community building. This spirit comes from Mari’s 1974 manual Autoprogettazione? (“Self-design?”), which offered simple, build-it-yourself furniture made from basic wooden boards, a hammer, and nails. Mari intended these projects not as alternatives to industrial production but as exercises for understanding how good design meets real human needs. By constructing and adapting each piece, participants grasp essential structural principles and develop a more critical, informed perspective on the designed objects that shape our daily lives.

In a series of hands-on workshops, participants will help build out the Volumes Design Library using Enzo Mari’s visionary approach to learning through making—constructing furniture and fixtures together as an act of collective design, education, and community building. This spirit comes from Mari’s 1974 manual Autoprogettazione? (“Self-design?”), which offered simple, build-it-yourself furniture made from basic wooden boards, a hammer, and nails. Mari intended these projects not as alternatives to industrial production but as exercises for understanding how good design meets real human needs. By constructing and adapting each piece, participants grasp essential structural principles and develop a more critical, informed perspective on the designed objects that shape our daily lives.

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