Functional Design and Unintended Consequences

I often design something for one purpose only to have it used for something quite different than that for which it was originally intended. My recent drop leaf drawer unit design has taken that familiar path. I added a drop leaf top to a drawer unit that I had built so that I could use it from the couch as a laptop workstation or alternative dinner table. It spends its time these days doing none of that though.

I have a comfortable leather office chair that sees a lot more use lately because the drop leaf drawer unit that sits beside it now features one of my iPad stands placed atop it. The iPad is held at a perfect viewing angle and height for me while I sit on that leather chair.

The drop leaf extension added to the drawer unit can support my laptop without interfering with the iPad stand while located on the center of the table top. I can use the iPad to look up reference information while using the laptop for design work, a very efficient, compact, and comfortable work solution ergonomically integrating multiple resources which I had not originally intended to combine.

I like functional design not only for its ability to provide solutions to known problem requirements, but also for its ability to open new doors to creativity by providing unintended solutions. I saw this in the pipe organs I built where players with different musical backgrounds would use innovative stop registrations to perform music in ways I had not considered.

More often, we who build things will come up with a unique idea and get the you-cannot-do-it-that-way-because-it-has-never-been-done-before argument back in return. It is refreshing when a design is actually used to do something that has never been done before by someone who is willing to experience things in a fresh, new way.