Furn.up

A furniture upcycling service for Hong Kong

Furniture upcycling in Hong Kong

Furn.up

Year: 2022
Field: Service UX Design
Type: Team Project
Role: Concept Designer

About This Project

Furn.up is a collaborative C2C furniture-sharing platform that aims to raise awareness about sustainable consumption behavior in Hong Kong. This project has been developed as an entry for the Student Service Design Challenge 2022, where it became a runner-up and achieved an honorable mention by the IKEA Group.

Furn.up Concept Overview
Furn.up concept overview
Background Information
Furniture waste statistics in Hong Kong
Furniture Upcycling Workshop
Results from the Furn.up upcycling workshop
Promotional Workshop Material
Information brochures for workshop participants

Service Concept

At its core, Furn.up is a community-oriented second-hand platform that aims to combat the inert waste pollution issue in Hong Kong. By connecting users who see old furniture as a piece of memorabilia, users can trade unused furnishing items and collect rewards along the way. Once a furnishing piece reaches the end of its life cycle, the platform also provides access to integrated upcycling workshops that teach interested users the basic skills required to create something meaningful out of an old product.

Business Model Canvas
Service Blueprint

Mobile Application

The Furn.up application is the primary touchpoint through which furniture buyers, furniture sellers, and workshop participants can communicate. The app provides an almost social-media-like experience that has been developed in close communication with the local target group in Hong Kong.

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Try the prototype!

Furn.up Mockup Screens
Year: 2022
Client: IKEA Ingka Group
Field: Service Design
Type: Team Project
Role: Concept Designer
Stakeholder Map
Map of all the involved stakeholders
Application Overview
Overview of the Furn.up application

About

Introduction

The design brief for this project asked for highly-localized service proposals that can disrupt the ownership economy and create exciting new service experiences for people, the planet, and the public. Thus, Furn.up targets a problem inherently rooted in the locality of Hong Kong: The city's immense waste pollution.

Background

Hong Kong has long established itself as a region with an enormous waste problem. In 2018, the city generated 5.95 million tons of waste, equaling a daily average of 1.53kg per person. Among that, furniture makes up roughly 27% of all bulky waste, citing an average of 342 tons of wood waste every day. Given this background, the aim of this project was to create a resourceful service solution that can make recycling/upcycling an increasing trend amongst Hongkongers.

Stakeholders

The core stakeholders that crystallized at the end of this project include four primary user groups: Movers, furniture buyers/workshop participants, workshop owners, and supporting entities (e.g., delivery contractors and sustaining governmental agencies). Finding a balance between the needs of all these stakeholders has been a crucial factor throughout the development of Furn.up.

Student Service Design Challenge

The Student Service Design Challenge is a global competition that encourages design students to tackle innovative Service Design projects over a project span of 5 months. Initiated by Philips Experience Design, the competition has hence been carried out in close collaboration with IBM, the IKEA Group, and many other designers from around the world.

Tools Used

  •  Figma
  •  Sketch
  •  Adobe XD
  •  Adobe Photoshop