Furniture - Capsule, 2025

6’5” x 22” 24”

White oak, Baltic Birch plywood, Cedar, Steel, Aluminum, Wool, Rope, Felt, Gabardine, Pulleys

In a world where a brand new outfit is just a tap away, what if the world could prioritize slow consumption, and staple belongings?

What if an item’s craftsmanship was the top priority and not its profitablility?

What if people could be trained to value their belongings more and consume less?

Created as my senior thesis project at Iowa State University as a response to overconsumption. Capsule is a new age wardrobe that was designed through a discursive lens, meant to create discourse and spark habit forming through a ritualistic practice. It is a compact, performative wardrobe with collapsible fabric shelves accessed via a pulley system on a steel pole. This offers enough space for a few days’ worth of clothing, encouraging users to reflect and prioritize what they truly value.

Rather than bolstering a consumer mindset, Capsule looks to meticulous curation, and minimalist mindsets by offering a system requiring physical labor and an intentional ritual to access the slowly collected array of clothing housed inside.

Contributions to the project:
- Extensive research through online databases, interviews, and scholarly articles

- Research on current consumer market, trends, and other relevant topics

- Intense ideation through sketching and physical modelmaking
- Presentations and critiques among peers, professors, and other design students

- Material research and testing

- Locally sourcing hardwood and plywood

- 3D modeling using Solidworks of chosen design for exact measurements

- Creation of realistic 3D renders using Keyshot

- Prepping, measuring, and cutting rough sawn lumber with jigsaw, and bandsaw

- Utilization of jointer, planer, tablesaw, sander, hand router, drill, miter saw, track saw, nailgun, files, drillpress, and palm sander to further manipulate wood

- Hand sanded all corners of object to achieve roundover look, and sealed with a minwax clearcoat

- Cut and sewed gabardine and felt material for collapsible shelving unit

- Cut and drilled steel pole with metal chop saw and metal drillpress

- Prepped files for milling aluminum with a CNC

- Utilized traditional cabinet and doormaking techniques to assemble main aspect of the object

Eric Lynch

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