OVERVIEW

Fig: 1 - Closets an integral part of the interiors - An illustration

PREMISE

In the old days, the necessity of storing clothes was not the purpose that was attributed to closets.

Houses those days were barely a single room while people slept on the floor. The elite people had manors with bedrooms where people slept and used for other activities, sometimes for entertaining guests too. When one's bedroom was also to be occupied with so many activities, they needed a place to have a private moment, either for reading, praying, or to store their prized possessions. This is where the closet was invented.

Up until the late 1960s, the cloth hangers that we now find in closets and wardrobes were not even invented. Clothes were stored in chests and trunks.

The term closet eventually became a synonym for secretive or private.

Fig: 2 - Closets - from being a personality extension are now an industrial solution

TRENDS

The evolution of closets from the medieval period to today’s cupboards gave rise to many variants for the storage of clothes and other pantries and have taken many forms all over the world. They have also become a part of the building in some cases.

Today closets are available in a range of lavishness, from just a wooden cupboard with racks to store folded clothes, to a whole room dedicated to dressing up including a pantry and other accessories.

But only the high-end closets give their customer the luxury of customization and without that closets come in a range just wide enough to cover the tastes of the larger percentile of people. If we all were given the option to design our closets to suit our personalities, it would be fun to visualize what the whimsy sect of the population would want their closets to look like.

Fig: 3 - A visual representation of one of the scenes in Alice in Wonderland.

BRIEF

It is always a sight to watch creative people go through their day and to wonder at the way their thoughts run. In every aspect of their life, some people stand apart, and to represent this quirky sect of our population, no one can do it better than a fictional character.

And who better than The Mad Hatter himself. The hat maker with an eye for good hats.

The challenge here is to design a personalized closet for Mad Hatter from the beloved fantasy story ‘Alice in wonderland’.

The aim here is to broaden the realms of closet designs by designing for the creative population and redefining the definition of storage in the future.

This project would help future product designers to broaden their visions and cater to the needs of all kinds of people.

OBJECTIVE

Personality - Understanding and decoding the personality of the mad hatter.
Compartments - Conceiving components and compartments.
Features - Conceiving interesting features.
Details - Conceptual structural and carpentry details to execute the above.

Fig: 4 – Volume of the closet

VOLUME

The closet has to be designed inside space of 6m x 2m and height of 3.5meters. The closet will rest against a wall and will have clean space in front of it. The closet can have any number of doors, depressions, drawers, mirrors, voids, all according to you.

The challenge looks at the most meaningful conversion of character to the design in the space that is available. This is not a space efficiency challenge, unlike traditional wardrobes of today - hence participants are open to employing creativity.