Antique school furniture, new technological features needs

Abstract

Question: Over the years the demands of teaching design contributed to the differentiation of school furniture, giving it a specific and distinctive character from the traditional classrooms. This fact is mainly due to the tools used by the students in the activities performed in this kind of classes. However, the material used by the students and the teaching methods have undergone significant changes over the years. A recent example is the replacement of traditional design methods by computer-aided ones as a consequence of the rapid evolution of technology. The generation of students now entering higher education, millennium generation, grew up with the presence of technology and the internet, so the pencil and paper are for previous generations as the computer is for millennial. Today’s furniture does not show signs of this evolution, thus still features characteristics of the beginning of the twentieth century. This absence of modern adapted furniture forced schools to provide supplementary material to compensate the problems caused by constant changes. Purpose: It is part of this article’s goals to perform a morphological and evolutionary analysis of the products with which the students interact directly. The analysis of some reference situations, such as the environment in school study rooms and in the classrooms, will allow students to identify their needs. In order to achieve our goal, data will be collected through observation techniques, surveys and morphological analysis of the current and antique furniture.