Maria Erdal Jørgensen

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@mariaerdal
maria@ymsepryd.no

Designing for Care

This project proposes a collection of principles aimed at supporting and sharpening intuitive aesthetic judgement, or tacit knowledge, rather than seeking to make a rigid framework.

Drawing from Yuriko Saito’s Aesthetics of Care, the eight principles form a framework for reflecting on important themes in contemporary design from a Care Ethics perspective. Positions on themes such as attentiveness, maintenance, and sustainability and useful friction are translated into an actionable tool for design practice.

The principles

Parallel to writing the principles, we designed three objects; Anker, Trellis and Kin, intended to exemplify specific principles. The framework informed the designs, while making them in turn sharpened and tested the framework.

The final outcome consists of the theoretical contribution: the principles and and the three objects, which together are made to invite reflection on care in design.

Year: 2026
In collaboration with Rose O’Sullivan and Vergard Tufto Wik
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1) Kin is comprised of an ash wood coffee table and four floor cushions that tuck neatly beneath it for storage. When guests outnumber seating options, the cushions can be pulled out and placed around the table as needed. When not in use, they contribute a generous cushioned edge to the coffee table that tie the shapes of the two parts together like puzzle pieces.2) Anker holds your usual pocket belongings and anything else you might need to temporarily offload when you get home or before you go out.3) In a single room that has to hold different moods, different purposes, and different people, it can become difficult to fully inhabit any one of them. To help with this, we designed Trellis—a space-dividing structure that can display textiles, hang clothes, or simply be a gentle boundary between one part of a room and another.