In their latest exhibition, Furnishing Utopia 4.0: Drawing Upon Frameworks, Furnishing Utopia collaborated with Herman Miller to continue exploring connections between design values across history.

Photo: Katrin Greiling

Linking the Shakers' design goals of creating Heaven on Earth to the Modernists' ambitions of designing new ways of living, the collective asked that designers reflect on the past to envision possibilities for the future.

Photo: Katrin Greiling

A workshop, American Modernism, a Midwest Tour, led to participants discovering physical and conceptual framework designs for life, work, and methodologies—all of which shared the goal of improving people's ways of life.

Responding to discoveries made in the workshops, the designers' efforts came together as a show during NYCxDesign, Drawing Upon Frameworks. Composed of drawings and other two-dimensional work—that's right, no three-dimensional prototypes or objects in this industrial design exhibit—the compilation showcases each designer's playful interpretations of the literal and conceptual ideas and forms that surround each of us in daily life.

So, why drawings? Seeking to capture the first moment that an abstract thought appears as a form, the designers embraced the challenge of ideating, exploring, and creating, without the use of CAD and other digital imagery tools that dominate industrial design today.

Photo: Katrin Greiling

Beginning with familiar ideas and interpreting them in an unfamiliar, though engaging, way allowed each designer to make new discoveries.

Photo: Shigeki Fujishiro

While the show is sadly no longer on view, you can check out Furnishing Utopia for more information.