Participatory Design of Portable and Adaptable Furniture Product for Village Traditional Pastry Vendors in Surabaya

Abstract

Traditional pastry making is an authentic skill and source of livelihood for many village vendors in Indonesia. Despite their potentials in improving regional economy and promoting traditional cuisine, village pastry vendors face marketing problems due to their poor product display system, lack of retail space, and uncertainty of available time to make and sell their pastries. This research develops the idea of designing a portable and adaptable furniture product that can help pastry makers display and sell pastries efficiently and independently. Using the participatory method of human-centred design, the designers became participants of the pastry-making community in order to empathize with their problems and aspirations. Meanwhile, the pastry makers became participants in the following design processes of defining problems, ideating concepts and testing of furniture design prototypes. The result of this research is a furniture product for displaying and selling traditional pastries that is movable, adaptable to space and place, visually representable to the natural authentic image of Indonesian traditional cuisine, could be assembled and dissembled easily, and practical for storage and mobility. From the participatory design method, product designers also gain a reflexive awareness of their role in the society as agents of social change and economic innovations.