Repairable furniture needs connections that can be undone and components that can be replaced, with enough information available for someone to carry out the work. Shu Wang’s Musician Chair, recognised in the Chair category at the SIT Furniture Design Award 2025, uses threaded inserts to connect laminated wood components and steel tubes, allowing individual parts to be removed, which gives repair a place in the design from the beginning, alongside the requirements of the musicians it was developed for.
A chair designed around playing music
Wang worked on the project thinking as a string player, having noticed that musicians often lean forward and rely on their legs for additional support while playing, thinking of how conventional chairs are made for a more relaxed, backwards-leaning position. Larger chairs also occupy lots of space on orchestra stages, where performers already have to find some for the instruments and music stands.
Developed in 2024, the Musician Chair has a forward tilt and a three-legged arrangement intended to support the player while leaving room for movement, with a compact form that can be stacked when it is not in use.
Threaded connections make room for repair
A threaded insert provides an internal thread for a compatible screw or bolt, allowing the fastener to be removed and refitted without driving it directly into the surrounding wood. Fastener manufacturer E-Z LOK identifies repeated assembly and disassembly as an application for threaded wood inserts, which help protect against wear to the fixing hole.
For someone repairing the chair, it means they are able to release the connection and separate the component that needs attention while keeping the usable parts. The simplicity of that process depends on access to the fixing and the sequence in which the furniture comes apart, which is why an assembly drawing can tell a buyer something that a finished product photograph cannot.
EU ecodesign rules are putting furniture repairability on the agenda
Furniture is among the priority product groups in the European Union’s Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation working plan, with furniture-specific rules provisionally scheduled for adoption in 2028. The European Commission explains that the evaluation process will establish the detailed requirements and the final compliance date, so that year should be understood as an indicative date for adopting the rules rather than a deadline by which every piece of furniture must already comply.
For designers and manufacturers, the practical questions are already relevant to product development: which parts can be replaced, how someone reaches them and what support will be available when the furniture needs attention. Working through a repair on paper, or demonstrating it with a prototype, can reveal whether the proposed construction gives the person maintaining it a workable route through the job.
What to ask when purchasing repairable furniture
A drawing is a useful place to begin, because it shows the relationship between components and gives the supplier something concrete to talk through. Ask them to explain how a part is removed and whether replacing it requires disturbing the rest of the piece, including any finishes or adjacent components that could be damaged along the way.
“Easy to disassemble” becomes a more informative claim when the supplier can name the tools and show how they reach the fixings, while a demonstration allows the buyer to see whether the process is practical for whoever will eventually do the work.
That person may have had nothing to do with the original purchase, which makes the handover information particularly important. Repair instructions and component references need to remain accessible after the project team has moved on; a carefully assembled specification folder is only helpful if the maintenance team knows where to find it.
For furniture designers, documenting these details also gives buyers a clearer account of the product’s construction, allowing a discussion about longevity to move beyond the appearance of durable materials and towards what can be maintained over time.
