Industrial design duo Liang-Jung Chen and Shuei-Yuan Yang create household objects by reimagining commonplace metal hardware items.
Chen and Yang set up a pop-up store at this year's Dutch Design Week, which saw them put a humorous spin on hardwares by altering and adapting them in inventive ways to function as household objects.
The dish rack is made from bird spikes on a concrete base
The London and Taipei-based designers presented 14 pieces of everyday apparatus, half of which were found in Taipei and half in the Netherlands, each "misused" in a different way.
Results included a vase made from a flag pole holder, a modular shelf made using an air vent and a dish rack made from bird spikes.
The tray uses a pole hook as a central handle Each new design aims to challenge the idea that hardwares can only be applied in one specific way.
The two designers researched each hardware item to understand its context, before deconstructing their functions in order to invent their own, new contexts.
Other repurposed objects include a watering can made from a handrail bracket, a revolving table made from a caster wheel, a pendant lamp held in place by a rubber door stop and a tray that uses a pole hook as a handle.
Various plugs form bottle tops for repurposed glass vessels
The Misused Hardware Store began as a research project on hardware items, inspired by the ways in which older generations that live in the Taiwanese countryside found creative ways of improvising with obje...