Future of Luggage
Making travel spaces home with luggage as furniture
Advanced Product Design, Spring 2019
LIFESTYLE, PROTOTYPING
TUMI presented each of us with the challenge to conceptualize the future of luggage. I looked to the future of travel to understand how luggage should change to fit these. With travel ease increasing rapidly, the TUMI clientele is getting younger and traveling more frequently.
In this hyper-connected future, luggage becomes furniture we travel with, able to make travel spaces home. Luggage then should provide comfort with organic, familiar materials and forms to people immersed in a fast-paced, technology driven environment.
This concept draws from one of the most recognizable moments in furniture, mid-century modern, by utilizing its materials and manufacturing techniques.
Leg splints, Charles and Ray Eames
The wood panels sandwich a single piece of fabric that forms the flex panel, hinge and handle.
The front panel expands out to give the user the extra space needed to fit the travel gear inside.
PROTOTYPING
I took a physical approach to ideation through experimenting with manufacturing techniques and processes to explore the physical solution space. First decision in this design process was to identify materials. Wood was selected as it lies in the intersection of concern for sustainability and fluid design with soft forms. In making the shell, I studied mold making and shaping wood with only water, without adhesives. In internal panels, I started with traditional bridge-like trusses to increase strength and cut weight, but then moved on to more organic shapes with similar properties.
