“Designers Create Sofa That Transforms into a Raft to Warn of Rising Water Levels”

On the occasion of design week in New York, artists unveiled a sofa like no other to warn of rising water levels, an environmental issue that particularly concerns the Big Apple. The furniture turns into a raft in case of floods! If the project can make people smile, it is above all intended to engage in stronger actions.

Last November, the Polynesian archipelago of Tuvalu surprised by using the metaverse as a way to alert the international community to the climate emergency. The heavenly destination had decided to create its double, not to make backpackers dream, but to raise awareness about its announced disappearance by 2100. In question: the rising waters. Drought as well as rising temperatures are not the only issues related to global warming that need to be curbed.

Around the world, many destinations are threatened by rising waters. According to the different scenarios, the experts estimate that New York, and in particular the island of Manhattan, could experience a rise in water levels of 20 to 75 cm by 2050. In France, one in ten coastal dwellings would be subject to flooding. here the end of the century, according to a study of the cabinet Callendar which proposed at the beginning of the year an analysis of the impact of the risk of submersion on the tricolor real estate market.

In the Netherlands, a quarter of whose territory is below sea level, two thirds of economic activity is exposed to the risk of submersion and flooding, indicated the Caisse des Depots last March. The Dutch meteorological institute KNMI has estimated that by 2100 the sea level off the coast of the Netherlands could rise by 1.2 metres.

Awareness of this dramatic consequence of climate change is therefore international. If Tuvalu have used new technologies to alert, the advertising agency Mother prefers to go straight to the point by submitting the idea that we will live on a raft if we do not find a solution. The design team has thus made a sofa perfectly suited to a submerged area. Borrowing the distinctive orange color of a life jacket, the furniture transforms into a raft when the cushions are removed. Equipped with a gauge to assess the water level, the prototype called Bliss is dressed in a water-resistant fabric. It is no less comfortable since an ottoman accompanies it and invites you to put away your cocktail kit. The sofa is actually a satire on inaction in the face of rising waters; it embeds a manual compiling false instructions to react in the event of a drift, inviting for example to relax.

The presentation of this work of art did not take place just anywhere. The Mother agency unveiled it as part of design week in New York, a destination particularly affected by rising waters. His Broadway show at NYXxDesign ends, and he will then find a buyer for the modest sum of 100,000 dollars (about 92,000 euros). A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the UN refugee agency.

(ETX Daily Up)