For centuries, domestic furniture has lived alongside us silently, encouraging interaction with the body and serving its purpose as a functional object. Because of their usefulness, they can stay with us for a long time. Being in our everyday lives, they absorb the memories and histories around them, acting as a material testament to people or occasions, so much so that they can become containers of memories.

However, in today’s consumerist society of six-month leases and three-month fashions, small scratches and imperfections on household furniture, are accepted as reasons for replacement and disposability is encouraged. As designers and manufacturers continue to re-design the chair, or the table for example, to suit an aesthetical preference, do they think about how much of our world’s resources they are condemning to landfill? And if we are discarding these ‘containers of memories’ then are we not, in effect, condemning our memories?

‘Re-Design’ is a project by interdisciplinary designer/maker Donna Walker, which addresses the need for desirable, fashionable furniture, but does so by recognising the worth and value in unfashionable or damaged objects, using existing, unwanted or discarded furniture found on the streets of Leeds, or donated to the project, as the material and framework of the products. Whilst making no attempt to remove the scratches and dents, which reflect the war wounds of their previous lives, she celebrates them. Transforming the objects into objects of contemporary design, breathing new life into tired old objects and increasing the longetivity of them, whilst still retaining a part of their previous history. Showing that yesterday’s junk can be today’s treasure.