Elisabeth Buecher

I would like to warmly thank Barabara Dohmann for funding my degree. Her generosity enabled me to focus all my energy on studying.

My Shower curtain is a green warrior

LINK TO PRESS IMAGES: http://www.flickr.com/photos/puffandflock/sets/72157616520211144/

I looked at the environmental issue of excessive water consumption. I designed a series of water-saving shower curtains and objects for the bathroom. The collection «My shower curtain is a green warrior» presents inflatable shower curtains. They act as timers to prevent people from staying too long under the shower.

The first one called «Spiky» gives you 4 minutes under the water before its inflating spikes push you out of the shower. You can’t stand in the shower anymore because the spikes take all the available space. You have to get out and stop using too much water.

Spiky:

The second one, called the «Trap», slowly inflates around you and leaves you 4 minutes to shower before trapping you. If you don’t want to get trapped you have to get out before it does and stop damaging the environment. These curtains are not really for marketing but aim at provoking a debate around water issues.

The Trap:

The Trap:

My approach to design can sometimes appear shockingly radical but I have got different reasons to legitimise that. An alarm clock is not what we can call a pleasurable object. It is often even painful to be awoken by it. However it is a necessary object, which regulates our lives and the society. That’s what I call the “design for pain and for our own good”. Some of my designs seem to constrain people, acting like an alarm clock, awaking people to the consciousness of their behaviour and giving them limits. People often need an external signal to behave more. In France the government added thousands of new radars on the roads to fight excessive speed. And it worked: there are far less people killed on the roads of France today. I call it “design of threat and punishment” and I use it as an educational tool.

Water-conscious toys

This collection aims at children and their parents. It consists of actually 3 sub-collections: a series of shower curtains, a series of bath panel/games and a showerhead attachment. The shower curtains match the bath panels and people can choose between buying one or both. Children play with the toys to learn about quantities and sharing with other living beings. It creates a conversation between kids and their parents to learn to respect water from a very young age.

Behind your curtains, the stage of your imagination

What is hidden behind your curtains? I chose to work with old fashioned and kitsch polyester curtains and to print mysterious shadows, fantoms, apparitions on them...Brrrrrrrr

Stepparquet

Previous work

Biography

Elisabeth Buecher is a French textile designer based in England. She first got involved with sustainability while studying at Central St Martins College of Art in London. Understanding the responsibilities she has as a designer, her creativity started to be more meaningful from then. She considers that the two most important challenges to a sustainable global future are, first to raise awareness by helping people to visualise the excesses and the damages, and secondly to find practical solutions to encourage them to behave well on a daily basis. More specifically, Elisabeth chose to look at the environmental issue of excessive water consumption. As well a being a reporter for Inhabitat at the next Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan, She will be presenting her water-saving shower curtains with her collective Puff and Flock at the Designer’s Block show.

Contact

Please contact me: elisabeth_buecher@yahoo.fr