What can a 19th-century farm tool teach us about designing modern furniture?

During the Summer Semester 2026, we have been exploring product design as a cultural practice, examining how artisanal knowledge embedded in historical artefacts has been transmitted across generations and apprehended through careful observation, making, and use. The studio course has combined research-driven inquiry, hands-on experimentation, and material engagement, enabling students to connect insights into the evolution of object typologies with their own design practice. Our main focus has been on vernacular artefacts—traditional household items, rustic furniture, farming tools, and details of rural architecture—as found in open-air museums and folk-art collections across our alpine region. Crafted for daily use, these examples of anonymous design—many of remarkable beauty, ingenuity, and longevity—bear traces of adaptation and refinement, shaped by scarcity of resources, local conditions, and pre-industrial craft traditions.