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Storage systems for oversized works of art on paper are examined regarding object protection, user satisfaction and sustainability by way of a life cycle assessment of furniture materials/construction features and a survey of about 100 institutions worldwide on their experience with oversize storage. General recommendations are derived and a simple checklist is developed to facilitate oversize purchase by museum professionals.

Demographic changes, the growing number of people with disabilities, and the demands on architecture and design are posing new challenges for designers. The space in which older adults live should be safe, not only from a legal point of view but especially to facilitate their daily activities. Modern society prioritizes the integration of older adults into everyday life so that as people grow older, they are not forced to abandon their daily routines because of obstacles in the space. It is said that a person is not handicapped because of their illness, but because society fails to prepare conditions for them to be able to move and live without restrictions. Moving in space is a multisensory experience. People use most of their senses such as sight, hearing, smell, and touch in addition to moving their bodies. How we feel indoors depends on the indoor climate, lighting, surface colours, air quality, floor plan, and furniture layout. Studies show that the materials and colour of products have an impact on how we navigate a space, how we feel and, in some cases, they can even have healing effects. The aim of our study is to investigate the association between colours in the environment and the orientation of people, especially older adults, in the space they live in. Several studies, experiments, and observations of foreign researchers serve as the basis of the paper. The analysis of case studies proved that colours in the environment have a significant impact on orientation in space and can be an effective tool for spatial orientation and drawing attention to a particular place. In surveys that have been conducted with older adults, warm colour tones such as yellow, orange, and red are preferred over cold ones. Red tones are some of the most easily recognizable for older adults who suffer from loss of colour recognition. They have lower cognitive abilities as a result of aging. Therefore, the achromatic environment does not sufficiently stimulate their brain function, leading to longer reaction times. Colour and contrast indoors play a big role in the perception of space and can help in drawing attention to a particular place.

This study has been inspired by a set of new rules which are expected to be implemented within the EU’s Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR). Considering the possible market risks for the Ukrainian furniture industry, and that includes both exporters and non-exporters (within the context of the harmonisation of the rules), this research sought to capture and understand the readiness of companies as regards the changes on the EU market, along with those companies’ sentiments and ability to cope with the upcoming inherent challenges. The survey of furniture producers presented in this paper is one of the first devoted to the problem of Ukrainian producers’ adaptability to the ESPR, made all the more challenging due to the burden of the ongoing war. This study has brought to light rather positive industry sentiments regarding furniture production volume and the competitive position of companies within the furniture industry, but there is also a lack of company awareness of the full range of ESPR measures and tools, hence there is a risk of underestimating those measures and tools’ possible impact along with the risk of a delayed response. Environmental sustainability values should be given higher priority than they are currently in companies’ current marketing strategies, and the effectiveness of supply chain management practices will inevitably have to be questioned by company leaders. Possible adaptation measures aimed at circularity are not sufficiently perceived, while attention is focused more on the use of materials, energy, and environmental pollution.

This paper explores the possibility of using recycled seashells from marine coasts of the Mali Ston Bay in Dubrovnik-Neretva County, Croatia, to create a novel bio material derived from waste seashells. In this research, two types of waste seashells, mussel (Mytilus galloprovincialis) and oyster (Ostrea edulis), combined with natural, non-toxic binders (bone glue) were investigated experimentally. The goal is to develop a sustainable material, suitable for the production of furniture and decorative objects. The parameters studied, included physical and mechanical properties of this material. The results showed that this bio composite material, derived from recycled seashells, is hygroscopic and has low compression strength. It should be used for making furniture components that don't bear heavy loads and it is suitable only for interior applications. This study presents an eco-friendly and sustainable material option, while optimizing the recycling of food waste materials.

In this paper, a large-scale screw-extrusion 3D printer specifically tailored for additive manufacturing applications is introduced, primarily focusing on crafting parawood powder/polylactic acid (PLA) furniture. Boasting a large build volume (700 × 700 × 700 mm3), the printer incorporates a meticulously designed screw extruder to ensure the precise feeding of composite material pellets. The investigation delves into the nuanced relationship between variations in the extruder nozzle orifice diameter and the resulting impact on the extrusion rate, directly correlating these variations with the motor speed. Additionally, the influence of the parawood powder/PLA ratio is explored through comprehensive mechanical property testing of the printed specimens. Optimal outcomes were attained with a 15 %w/w parawood powder composition, yielding an impressive ultimate strength of 54 MPa under specific printing conditions. The efficacy of the large-scale screw-extrusion 3D printer was robustly validated through the successful production of a parawood powder/PLA stacking chair, meeting the criteria stipulated in the Thai industrial standard. Furthermore, an identified parawood powder/PLA component, characterized by a rectangular cylinder with a cross-sectional area of 19.4 × 24.0 mm2, holds promising potential for versatile applications in furniture assembly. This innovative extrusion 3D printing approach, combined with meticulously optimized parameters, has unequivocal potential for manufacturing a diverse array of parawood powder/PLA furniture, elevating the value of parawood byproducts and contributing to waste reduction during processing.

This paper identifies weaknesses in the ergonomics and design advancements of household furniture. This paper suggests recommendations to enhance the satisfaction and support of ergonomic furniture. Furniture and interior wares are the chosen products of interest, and are specifically emphasised in the context of home living. This paper includes an ergonomics focus on the engineering and industrial design of household furniture, but does not include an analysisofbiomechanics, physiology and anthropometry. Based on evaluations of patents from 1980 to 2013, this paper suggests that a user-centred design would be an ideal choice for designers as it potentially promotes customer satisfaction and simultaneously improves the health and well-being of users. The paper synthesises the consensuses of furniture consumers which include data from trends, demands, complexities and preferences.

As many schools are moving towards more innovative learning environments, there is an ongoing need for evidence about how teachers and students use these innovative spaces to enhance learning. While innovative learning environments have been characterised as spaces that are more flexible, with ubiquitous technology and the ability to reconfigure space dependent on the learning task, there is no universal definition of what constitutes a truly ‘innovative’ learning environment because each school context is unique. Consequently, how innovative learning environment designs are used in practice will vary depending on the needs of students, teachers and school communities. The Plans to Pedagogy project, developed by the University of Melbourne’s Learning Environments Applied Research Network (LEaRN) team, is exploring the educational issues school leaders and teachers identify as they transition to and use innovative learning environments. It acknowledges that no two schools are the same, and each school has unique spatial challenges. Plans to Pedagogy, embedded in a range primary and secondary schools across Australia and New Zealand, has eight current projects. Each school is assigned a LEaRN academic who works with a small teaching team to co-design and implement a research project targeting the school’s identified spatial challenge. The eight current projects focus on issues such as promoting student agency and developing 21st century learning skills in students, mapping collaborative teaching practices, assessing the impact of furniture on student engagement, and supporting the transition of teachers’ pedagogy as they move from traditional to innovative environments. As each has a unique focus, the research methods used differ case to case. However, a common principle is that each case needs to build evidence that is disseminated to the school community, with the aim of sharing learning to support teachers’ and students’ praxis in innovative learning environments. To examine this further, this paper will briefly overview each of the current eight Plans to Pedagogy projects to give a sense of the scope and focus of issues faced by teachers in schools in terms of using their learning environments well. It will then focus on two projects for a deeper examination that will illustrate how the researcher/school partnership operates. The first is the journey of a large composite primary-secondary school, where the staff are exploring how their complex student cohort is using their open-plan new build to assist an adventurous student-centred curriculum approach. The second case study is an example of a retrofit project in a rural primary school, where teachers kept their existing classrooms but changed the furniture in their rooms from traditional desks and chairs to flexible furniture arrangements, exploring the impact of this change on student engagement and teachers’ pedagogy. The paper makes the case that Plans to Pedagogy warrants close examination by others working in this field as each project starts by identifying schools’ unique spatial challenges, it builds research expertise of staff in these schools, and it supports these actions by aligning a specialist learning environments researcher to ensure robust methods and results that directly impact school improvement.

The sustainable development of the furniture industry is experiencing the challenges of energy consumption and waste disposal. Product–service systems (PSSs) have the potential to promote sustainable development and the opportunity to transition to a circular economy (CE). PSSs can bring a series of benefits to sustainable furniture, but there are still some problems to be considered, such as the safe storage and transmission of information and data and the protection of stakeholders’ rights and interests. With digitization becoming a major trend, emerging digital technologies such as blockchain (BC) are proving to have the potential to solve related problems. Therefore, this paper aims to integrate the potential roles of BC and PSSs in the lifecycle of sustainable furniture. This paper adopts a mixed quantitative and qualitative research method. Firstly, the potential relationship among furniture, PSSs, and BC was quantitatively analyzed by VOSviewer. Secondly, this paper qualitatively analyzes the lifecycle stages of sustainable furniture, the advantages of PSSs to promote sustainable furniture, and the potential of BC to enhance the PSSs information model (IM) to further promote sustainable furniture to address related challenges. Subsequently, the conceptual BC-enhanced PSSs IM (BC-PSSs) framework was constructed, which contains the high-level and the low-level of structure and process, and then reviewed and refined through pre-interview questionnaires and follow-up interviews by industry experts and scholars. In addition, discussing the contribution of the conceptual BC-PSSs framework in sustainable furniture, and the potential of BC-PSSs in quantifying design value, encouraging designers to contribute value, and exploring the potential role of BC-PSSs in supporting sustainable consumer behavior. It is the first attempt to construct a conceptual BC-enhanced PSSs IM framework for sustainable furniture from the perspective of lifecycle stages, which can serve as a reference for researchers and policymakers in relevant directions to support sustainable development, in particular contributing to the achievement of SDGs 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities) and SDGs 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production).

School must celebrate the common and the tables must be the place that unites and connects us, the teachers said. The concept of the desk had to be reimagined. This paper charts a journey through the author’s design practice, pursuing transformation of the ped-agogical space of the classroom through the common. hEXtable is a scalar series of tables that grow and unfold like a mosaic but that can also nest within each other like a set of Russian dolls. The irregular hexagonal tables grouped in different ways play with order, favoring individual and collective forms of appropriation.

Furniture as a functional object must satisfy both artistic and scientific requirements. In particular, ergonomic factors are very important in furniture design in terms of human health and productivity. To make furniture designs at the ideal intersection of science and art, it is necessary to approach furniture design with a scientific systematic. Accordingly, this paper summarizes and analyzes the current state of biomechanics in ergonomic furniture design, covering an overview of the biomechanics utilized in different types of furniture design, biomechanical analysis, and testing methods. In the conclusion of the study, the literature analysis identifies the key topics and areas of future exploration regarding the use of biomechanics in ergonomic furniture design. The findings of the review indicate that (1) the primary studies on biomechanics used in furniture design concentrate on special furniture, such as wheelchairs and transportation vehicle seats, with minimal investigation performed on common furniture; (2) mechanical analysis, experimental testing, and computer-aided ergonomics represent the main techniques applied in furniture design biomechanics; (3) the reliability of biomechanics used in furniture design needs to be improved due to the lack of fundamental parameters of the muscles and skeleton of the human body; and (4) more attention should be paid to the use of biomechanics in the design of common furniture, such as household and office furniture, which affects people’s health and comfort. The scientific and rational application of biomechanics should be integrated into ergonomic furniture design to promote healthy living and enhance work efficiency.

Furniture emits various VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds) and formaldehyde (HCHO) into the indoor air. These indoor air pollutants can cause SBS (Sick Building Syndrome), such as sickness, headache, dizziness, nausea, drowsiness, and loss of concentration. This paper aims to provide essential data for improving indoor air quality by identifying the characteristics of the emission of VOCs and HCHO according to the characteristics of raw materials and finishing methods for furniture materials. As a methodology, a small chamber experiment was conducted with eight different test pieces with different base materials compositions and surface finishing methods. VOCs and HCHO were collected and analyzed by GC/MS (Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry) and HPLC (High-Performance Liquid Chromatography). The result showed that the TVOC in the composite material differed according to the retention period of the raw material. HCHO preferentially affects the processing method and the storage period after molding rather than the retention period of raw materials. TVOC emission was lower when the surface finishing method was applied, like paint finish. HCHO emission was getting lower when the adhesive was used during molding. Furniture applied to new houses is installed indoors in the form of finished products (composite materials). It was confirmed that the emission amount from furniture was generally higher than that of the general interior finishing material. Not only using eco-friendly raw materials, securing a specific retention period for raw materials, selecting eco-friendly processing methods, securing a particular retention period after molding, and post-construction management (ventilation and bake-out) should be done through a comprehensive evaluation of furniture.

As demands for understanding visual style among interior scenes increase, estimating style compatibility is becoming challenging. In particular, furniture styles are difficult to define due to their various elements, such as color and shape. As a result, furniture style is an ambiguous concept. To reduce ambiguity, Siamese networks have frequently been used to estimate style compatibility by adding various features that represent the style. However, it is still difficult to accurately represent a furniture’s style, even when using alternate features associated with the images. In this paper, we propose a new Siamese model that can learn from several furniture images simultaneously. Specifically, we propose a one-to-many ratio input method to maintain high performance even when inputs are ambiguous. We also propose a new metric for evaluating Siamese networks. The conventional metric, the area under the ROC curve (AUC), does not reveal the actual distance between styles. Therefore, the proposed metric quantitatively evaluates the distance between styles by using the distance between the embedding of each furniture image. Experiments show that the proposed model improved the AUC from 0.672 to 0.721 and outperformed the conventional Siamese model in terms of the proposed metric.

Global economic crisis represents one of the causes why wood consumption is increasing especially in countries less developed. In countries where governments couldn’t improve the quality of life and unemployment rate is higher, local communities devastate a lot of forestry. In last thirty years we saw a deforestation process at the global level related to land being converted to other uses: agriculture and urbanization, which represent a positive trend of a negative use. The statistics reveal, on one hand, an increasing demand for paper, paper products, wood products and wood energy. So this point is important to analyze: where wood came from and where it is going as either raw material or processed goods? For undeveloped countries, like Romania, it is easy to export primary wood product without evaluating the consequences. On the other hand, developed countries like Sweden export value added products which brig them higher value and profits and require greater manufacturing and marketing skills (case IKEA). For this, government policy could introduce trade barriers to decrease log consumption (like export taxes) and simultaneously support furniture production and trade (e.g. export).

This paper analyzes the influence of wood as the primary choice of material for furniture production. The wood, with its physical, chemical and mechanical properties, stands out from other materials when making a selection of material for furniture production. The wood possesses excellent physical properties, hardness, strength and density, chemical properties, wood does not rust and mechanical properties, elasticity, bending strength and tensile strength. Each type of wood has its own specific propertiesthat make it unique, even the same kind of wood grown in a different place has different properties, the oak has great strength and is therefore difficult to work while the beech has less firmness then the oak and therefore it is easier for machining. Proper choice of material also exerts a great influence on the very design of the piece of furniture. The choice of material depends on which design will be used in the manufacture of furniture. A well thoughtout design can be adapted to the choice of material sometimes, but with wood as the primary choice of material for furniture production the design itself gets on quality.

This paper analyzes the influence of the application of wood on the technological preparation of furniture production. When it comes to furniture production the wood as a choice of material is the most used material today as it was in the past. It describes the physical and chemical properties of the wood, its technology for making furniture, as well as the influence of the choice of the type of wood on the application of furniture production. From the conducted research in furniture manufacturing companies it can be concluded that at the moment the most common wood for furniture production in North Macedonia is the beech, the second is the oak, and the third is the walnut. The technologies used to process these types of wood are up to date with world-class technology, and when economies are required, sometimes chipboard and mediapan are also used. The best type of wood for making furniture is the oak, but from the research it can be concluded that besides being less available from the beech, it is also more difficult for processing and requires different machining.

This paper analyzes the dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation in Furniture SMEs in East Java, Indonesia, towards competitive advantage. This study uses a quantitative approach with the survey method. This study uses primary data that is self-reported using a self-administered survey by distributing questionnaires directly to 84 owners of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) Furniture in Western East Java, Indonesia. A measurement used the structural equation model (SmartPLS 3.0) to analyze data. Five hypotheses were proposed, and only four had positive significant and positive effects on competitive advantage, that is, the influence of entrepreneurial orientation consisting of proactiveness, innovativeness, aggressiveness, and autonomy. In contrast, the hypothesis related to risk-taking towards the competitive advantage of SMEs Furniture has no positive and significant effect. The findings of this study show that the dominant influence of the entrepreneurial orientation dimension is aggressiveness. The theoretical implication of this research is that furniture business players need to continuously improve their aggressiveness in entrepreneurship according to the theoretical findings in this study, such as introducing innovative products made from local materials and following market trends. This research adds to the theory of aggressiveness in entrepreneurship to encourage innovations that will make industries that use local natural resources more competitively and help government policies. Aggressiveness is required by the furniture business to improve competitiveness for a labor-intensive industry with reliable local content to spur economic growth in Indonesia.

The paper intends to present an ornament, less used in decoration because of the practical difficulties in manufacturing, either manually or in the industrial system. In the paper are presented the elements related to the design (geometry) of the cable mouldings, both for constant and variable pitch type and also the kinematics of generating these ornaments. Finally the working schemes of processing these ornaments in the wood industrial system are presented, the ornaments being used to decorate pieces of furniture. The cable moulding type decoration gives to furniture and building products a certain dynamism and vigor, wherefore remains permanently in the attention of designers in construction and furniture fields and also of the interior designers.

There is no doubt that 3D printing technology has entered in many industries and contributed to the development of several products, led by the internal design elements, that enables the designer to unleash technical ideas, develop models and non-stereotypical, radically differs in form and content for interior design elements are designed to adopt the generally accepted model of a typical manufacturing and technology that remained until the present limited to the production of the initial proto type factories researched and developed before the revelation to the production lines of the stereotypes. This paper seeks to identify the root causes of the differences between the elements of the design, the manufacturer of the ways stereotypes and that item which Manufactured with 3D printing technology, the objective is to identify what can be provided by the technical assistance of the features endless designer to allow him to get out of the framework imposed by the industrialization and stereotypes, to wider horizons that knows no bounds in the design. The research problem: The creation of an effective system invokes the substantive grounds for the design elements of interior design and non-stereotypical manufactured using 3D printing technology. Research Objectives: 1-. Access to the fundamental differences between the elements of the internal design of the typical technology manufacturer,and the manufacturer of 3D printing technology. 2-. Identify the possibilities offered by the 3D printing technology for the designer to get out of the design pattern by manufacturing methods module. 3-. The granting of indicative map designed to run clear design process elements of the Interior Design Manufacturer ably 3D printing technology. The hypothesis of the search: .1 Give the designer 3D printing technology infinite horizons of creativity in the design process. 2 the possibility of using 3D printing technology to produce internal design elements in quantitative as well as for use in the preparation of the initial samples for industrialization.

The integration of devices that support manufacturing activities and the interaction of workers with these devices in production plants, leads to potential benefits in the industrial environment. Problems, bottlenecks and improvement opportunities throughout production times need to be detected, analyzed and prioritized in order to select the most suitable solutions and address them properly. The integration of particular devices supports the manufacturing process and prevents the need for contingency planning; it also increases the quality of the produced goods, which leads to higher customer confidence and satisfaction. The scope of this article focuses on the development and experimentation of a vision system for the recognition of product components in order to support the classification of such items by the users working in a particular area of the production line. Even if the proposed solution presents a low level of human interaction and innovation, the objective of this paper is to demonstrate how the proposed classification system brings valuable benefits to the overall manufacturing process in a traditional furniture environment, with the inherent advantage that workers can perform this task in a more guided and riskless manner. The Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) approach was adopted to measure the benefits of the solution, which are described in article.

This paper presents anthropometric measurements regarding engineering students in India. Health survey (ergonomic assessment) was carried out to know the health status of all students who have been using poorly designed furniture. The data were measured with the help of various tools. After data collection and analysis, authors came up with exhaustive dimensions for designing adjustable classrooms furniture. Dimensions recommended include; bench surface height, bench depth and width, back rest width and height, backrest angle, desk height, desk depth, width, and desk angle. Therefore, an implementation of these data will help to create comfortability, safety, well-being, suitability, reduce Musculoskeletal disorders, and improve performance of students in terms of attentiveness. Also, it is highly recommended to consider requirements from students in designing classrooms furniture and conduct seminar or workshop to educate students regarding the negative impact towards adapting poor posture in the long usage of classrooms furniture.

In the recent years the habits of buying furniture have changed. The fabrication of individual pieces of furniture is increasingly coming to the forefront. A personal contact is being established between the customer and the furniture, which is a relationship of one (product) to one (customer). In order to satisfy the individual demands, higher quality as well as higher prices appeared as a necessity. The competition is beginning on the market, where emotion becomes a significant factor in decision-making process. Therefore, functionality and aesthetic functions, determinative forms and fashionable style play a very important role in furniture design and production. The objective of the paper is to report research results on how functionality and aesthetics of different styles of furniture could be determinated, measured and how they influence customer requirements and demands. To establish the proportion of functionality and aesthetic features, a numerical expression of the functions was defined by using various designers’ methods such as Ranking Method Quality Development (RMQD) and Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA). It is shown that both methods could be used very effectively for designed and marketing oriented furniture, for modelling customer satisfaction as well as in connection with aesthetic functions, assuring the quality of the product in the planning stage.

The predominance of drawing as a mean to create and represent architecture, whether in an educational setting or in professional practice, has had a profound influence on the design process. Drawings are so much a part of that process that they can often be mistaken for architecture itself. But drawings are not architecture, rather they are tools to create and control. Historically, drawings greatly contributed to the establishment of the profession of architect inaugurated by the Italian Renaissance. They became the means by which architects gained control over design and by extension over the construction process. Control of the design process eventually moved from the hands of the master builders to architects’ pencils. The long-held monopoly of drawings in architecture has perpetuated a structural disconnect between design process and the “making of things”. The heavy reliance on drawings has lead to tendencies for abstraction, repetition, self reference and a diminished sense of genuine innovation. Design/build as an alternative delivery method focuses on a more intuitive approach based on the creative powers of manual labor and the interaction of the designer with the material world. This methodology has the advantage to re-engage a generation of student increasingly invested in a world of virtual stimuli with the physical materiality of things and promote the creative value of Homo Faber. By “making things” students are designing. A hands-on approach would also meet the needs of a student body who responds well to active learning pedagogy. This paper will present a series of recent furniture design/build exercises where students designed and furniture and small building prototypes with limited reliance on drawings. We will discuss how subjects such as structures, material sourcing and construction detailing can be transposed from various courses and applied to design/build projects. We believe that a pedagogy based on physical experimentations could infuse energy throughout curricula no matter the course subject.

Earthquake is a significant natural incident which harms the people by affecting the housing settlements, in which they live in, developed by the cultures of the societies. The accurate planning of the housing spaces and building them seismically safe decreases these harms of the earthquakes. Nonetheless, the household goods that we use inside affect the internal space planning because of their habitual use and thus also affect the building, and the people and household goods inside during the earthquake. When the damages occurred in Turkey and Japan are examined, which are both located on the significant seismic zones, it is observed that demolition, damage, and injuries are encountered more in Turkey. Learning to live with the earthquakes and designing earthquake resistant buildings have become a lifestyle in Japan. Undoubtedly, the effects of the traditional Japanese lifestyle on the contemporary internal design of the houses exist within this concept. With this purpose, in this paper, traditional and contemporary internal space habitual uses of Japan, which is accepted to solve its earthquake problems as regards to design, and Turkey, which has encountered great sufferings due to the earthquakes, are examined; and their differences and similarities were compared according to the non-structural earthquake hazards. Thus, a righteous solution according to the disaster management was aimed to be achieved in the study.

North America's first oriented strand board (OSB) mill was built in the early 1980's. Twenty years later, the industry was thriving, with over 50 mills producing the product. China's first OSB mill was built in 1990, and 25 years later, there are a few mills with a total capacity less than two large North America mills, most operating below capacity and struggling to identify domestic markets for the growing production. This paper briefly looks at the histories of OSB industries in North America and China, presents the current situation of China’s wood-based panels industry and its downstream industries, and identifies OSB opportunities and potential products in China. Opportunity for sheathing-grade OSB is very limited in the current Chinese market, whereas industrial opportunities for specialty OSB products to replace plywood have great potential. Those specialty products include materials for furniture, wood doors, wood flooring, container flooring, concrete form, etc. OSB producers must designate the right OSB products for the Chinese market and cost-effectively manufacture those differentiated products to meet specifications for various end-applications.

One of the most important factors determining the company‘s capacity to produce high quality products is the level of machinery operation effectiveness. Companies having modern machinery are characterized by high productivity. To obtain a high quality product, the equipment should be properly used, without any failure, which contributes significantly to the exploitation level increase. The modernity level and the exploitation effectiveness level for chosen machine producing furniture components in relation to the product quality level were analysed in the paper. As a result of the research findings analysis, proposals for corrective actions with regard to machinery maintenance and production processes were presented.

Conservation of cultural heritage relies on scientific investigation of artefacts, a key point being identification of the original materials. In this context, besides wood species identification, investigation of finishing layers is of ultimate importance for old furniture and any other wooden objects with historic, documentary or artistic value. The present paper refers to a series of micro-destructive investigation methods applied for identification of finishing materials, namely: simple in situ and laboratory physical tests, optical microscopy, micro-chemistry and FTIR – ATR analysis. Small samples of finishing layers were taken from four furniture objects belonging to CNM ASTRA Sibiu and were analysed according to the usual procedures of the laboratories from Sibiu and Brasov. The results showed that physical tests and microscopy are useful to get basic information on the samples’ morphology and possible classes of coating materials, while micro-chemistry revealed by some successive tests more specific information on the type of finishing materials. FTIR - ATR is a rapid method of identifying the coating materials based on available reference samples or spectra. However, this is not always straightforward and preliminary physical tests of solubility are useful to select the adequate references, while micro-chemistry tests could complete the FTIR result, especially for those components of the finishing layer present in very small amounts (less than 5%), bellow the FTIR sensitivity. Corroboration of microscopy, physical and micro-chemistry tests with FTIR can provide more reliable results in terms of finishes identification and also valuable information for restoration.

A voluntary action is the key for individual benefits in addition to social ones. The voluntary actions for cultural heritage conservation are meant to provide gains for longs terms and to raise public awareness on the importance of conservation-restoration activities. During the past 5 years different volunteering actions for cultural heritage conservation organized by our faculty alone or in cooperation with the ASTRA Museum from Sibiu were finalized with exhibitions and public events. The case study presented in this paper is referring to the conservation-restoration of two long benches with backrest, dating from the first half of XXth century. The benches restored make parts from a group of artefact that was restored in the restoration camps at ASTRA Museum in 2013 and 2014. The particularity of the benches was de finishing layer that imitates the wood texture known as flander technique. This type of finishing is common to the landler community who was deported from Austria to Transylvania at the end of 17th century. The approach of conservations – restorations process was different for the artistic painting parts and needs special and appropriate intervention and investigation. While minimum interventions were making in order to preserve the objects for the future, we want to ensure that the value of less known technique can be well understood by younger generations.

Experimentelle Archäologie in Europa. Bilanz 2013 published by Gunter Schöbel and the European Association of Archaeology by Experiment e.V. is the product of the experimental archaeology conference AEAS/GAES, held between the 4th - 7th October 2012, Switzerland. The presented papers cover the period from the Mesolithicum to the Middle Ages, with topics including experiments, education and theory of archaeology. As a result, the book invites all readers to participate in active thinking and active experiments in experimental archaeology.

In terms of spatial configuration, kitchen and their arrangement in the assembly, storage and distribution areas place. This paper focuses upon designing a prototype by taking into account the kitchen geometry as different materials and their properties, th ensure a long lifespan of the product at a minimum cost.

In terms of spatial configuration, kitchen and their arrangement in the assembly, storage and distribution areas place. This paper focuses upon designing a prototype by taking into account the kitchen geometry as different materials and their properties, th ensure a long lifespan of the product at a minimum cost.

Due to the high amounts of waste generated from the building industry field, it has become essential to search for renewable building materials to be applied in wider and more innovative methods in architecture. One of the materials with the highest potential in this area is natural fibre-reinforced polymers (NFRP), which are also called biocomposites, and are filled or reinforced with annually renewable lignocellulosic fibres. This would permit variable closed material cycles’ scenarios and should decrease the amounts of waste generated in the building industry. Throughout this paper, this discussion will be illustrated through a number of developments and 1:1 mockups fabricated from newly developed lignocellulosic-based biocomposites from both bio-based and non-bio-based thermoplastic and thermoset polymers. Recyclability, closed materials cycles, and design variations with diverse digital fabrication technologies will be discussed in each case. The mock-ups’ concepts, materials’ compositions, and fabrication methods are illustrated. In the first case study, a structural segmented shell construction is developed and constructed. In the second case study, acoustic panels were developed. The final case studies are two types of furniture, where each is developed from a different lignocellulosic-based biocomposite. All of the presented case studies show diverse architectural design possibilities, structural abilities, and physical building characteristics.

This review considers the potential and challenges of using agro-based oil palm biomasses, including the trunk, frond, empty fruit bunch, and palm press fiber biocomposites, for furniture applications. Currently, design and quality rather than price are becoming the primary concern for consumers when buying new furniture. Within this context, this paper focuses on the design of innovative, sustainable furniture from agro-based biocomposites to meet the needs of future population growth and technology. This research also discusses the need for biocomposite materials that do not depend on the growth of populations, but on the growth and development of the economy. This study focuses on globally available agro-based biocomposites, especially those from oil palm biomass: plywood, medium density fiberboard (MDF), wood plastic composite (WPC), laminated veneer lumber (LVL), oriented strand board (OSB), hardboards, and particleboard. Additional positive aspects of biocomposites are their environmentally friendly character, high quality, competitive design, and capacity to improve the value proposition of high-end products. These attributes increase the demand for agro-based biocomposite furniture on the international market.

Diversity of attitudes and opinions, different lifestyles, and human globalization offer to the modern man wide possibilities of individual selection. The market provides numerous innovations in the context ofexisting global and local contents, which do not appear in the form of trends but rather as new values and attitudes. Due to the competition of the same type of shops that mostly offer the same or similar goods at approximately the same price, factors such as the shop layout and sales staff are increasingly infl uencing the choice of point of sale and purchase. This paper presents how the customers/consumers ssessed the place for buying furniture. The research was carried out by a questionnaire survey in four sales centers. The collected data were analyzed statistically using χ2 - test. The results showed that customers were satisfied with the location, range of products and with information about products received by the staff in sales centers. They were somewhat less satisfied with the treatment of sales center staff and appearance of sales centers. They expressed the least satisfaction with the price and payment conditions.

The paper presents a case study in which a potential investor wanted to invest into a furniture store in the part of the Republic of Croatia named Dalmatia. In four Dalmatian counties (Split, Zadar, Šibenik and Dubrovnik counties), 220 randomly selected persons (180 answered) were asked by telephone what kind of furniture they would like to buy in the next two years and how much they were prepared to pay for the purchase. Based on the results of a consumer survey, fi ve possible alternatives (product lines) were selected and the priorities determined, i.e. which product line was the most profi table taking into account criteria of successful business operations using the multi-criteria model.

The objective of the paper is the parametrization and the finite element analysis of mechanical pro­per­ties of a through dovetail joint made with the use of a specific procedure by a 3-axis CNC machine. This corner joint was used for the simulation of the bending load of the joint in the angle plane – by compression, i.e. by pressing the joint together. The deformation fields, the stress distribution, the stiffness and the bending moment of the joints were evaluated. The finite element system ANSYS was used to create two parametric numerical models of the joint. The first one represents an ideal­ly stiff joint – both joint parts have been glued together. The second model includes the contact between the joined parts. This numerical model was used to monitor the response of the joint stiffness to the change of the static friction coefficient. The results of both models were compared both with each other and with similar analyses conducted within the research into ready-to-assemble furniture joints. The results can be employed in the designing of more complex furniture products with higher demands concerning stiffness characteristics, such as furniture for sitting. However, this assumption depends on the correction of the created parametric models by experimental testing.

At the present time and under current market conditions, where the interest is focused on fast profit, furniture constructor has to offer a fast, reliable and not expensive choice of construction solution according to designer’s demands. The way of deformation of construction durability according to regulations and standards for furniture testing is nowadays often replaced with simulation models for construction testing. This paper presents the analysis of methods for testing construction assemblies. Examples are given for corner joints and furniture having this type of joint. The results of systematic research are also presented with the analysis of parameters affecting the quality of furniture. Since no precise computatonal models have been determined that could replace the actual testing of construction assemblies, in future a more intensive research can be expected in finding models for applying computer-based modelling applicable in developing and designing phase of production.

Furniture is a major export commodity in Indonesia with a total value of USD 1.96 million in 2007. Jepara District is one of the key location for wood furniture production with 15,271 furniture related business units employing 176,469 workers. However, inefficiencies and power imbalances throughout the furniture value chain have resulted in overharvesting and uneven distribution of gains among the industry’s actors. In contrast to price-setting international furniture retailers, small-scale producers enjoy the least value from their products. In order to increase added value and competitiveness, small-scale furniture producers have made efforts to upgrade by harnessing their social network and institutions. This paper describes small-scale furniture producers’ efforts to upgrade by utilising their social network and institutions in Jepara. Data was collected through in-depth interviews with members of the small-scale furniture producers’ association. The research provides insight into the nature of social networks and information flow and develops future scenarios to upgrade. The scenarios will not only benefit the furniture industry in Jepara, but may also be adopted for similar industries throughout Indonesia and the world, and potentially improve many people’s economies and livelihoods.

El objetivo de este trabajo radica en valorar la importancia que adquieren los muebles para la historiografía actual y en analizar, mediante el escaparate, los cambios domésticos que se producen en el palacio español tras la entronización de Felipe V. De mano de dicha categoría se aborda la sociedad madrileña del siglo XVII y la metamorfosis que experimenta el mobiliario español cuando la ostentación y devoción del barroco dan paso a la privacidad y comodidad que propone el siglo XVIII.This paper tries to establish furniture’s value as history’s way of study and to analyse, through the displaycabinets, the domestic changes that affect Spanish palaces after Felipe V’s enthronization. It will broach Madrid XVIIth Century’s society and incide on how Spanish traditional furniture will be affected when barroque’s display and devotion are superseded by privacy and comfort.