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Department of Furniture, Design, and Habitation was founded in 1991, linking to a tradition of a dissolved Institute of Furniture Research and Development (which existed in Brno from 1954 to 1990) and re-establishing research in the field of furniture and interior. The department´s primary goals are the university educational activities with the objective of forming of a new wood and furniture engineer generation. The Department of Furniture, Design, and Habitation provides bachelor courses in Wood Technology and master courses in Furniture, Products and Design.
Besides teaching, the department offers specialist activities in the following areas:
- Safety, Quality, Legislation
- Doc.Dr.Ing. Petr Brunecký - VOC Emissions Research and Testing
- Ing. Daniela Tesařová, Ph.D. - Consultancy in Finishing
- Ing. Zdeněk Muzikář - Consultancy in CAD/CAM Systems
- Doc.Ing. Josef Chladil.CSc. - Production, Quality Management and Standards
- Ing. Arnošt Trávník - Furniture Constructing
- Ing. Zdeněk Holouš
- Ing. Eliška Máchová - Upholstered Furniture and Components
- Ing. Věra Jančová - Furniture Appliances and Production Devices
- Ing. František Kachyňa - Production Ecology and Work Hygiene
- Ing. Karel Krontorád, CSc. - Consultancy in Furniture Selling
- Ing.arch. Ludvika Kanická, CSc. - Interior and Habitation Creation
- Prof.Ing.arch. Jindra Halabala, CSc. - Furniture and Wooden Products Design
- Ing.arch. Martin Kovařík
- Akad.arch. František Vrána
- Ing.arch. Jaromíra Šimoníková, CSc.
Questions about furniture industry, design and ecology:
Are you interested in design and furniture ?
Why there is not only one type of car, top, skirt, shoes, TV set, PC... even though it would be enough from the aspect function? This is because the man´s nature is to define oneself against the neighbourhood and to assert one´s individual identity. For this reason, a man has been always seeking for the "beauty" and a new design of things, thus of furniture as well. However, design is also the first ecological concept as well as a determination the purpose, meaning, and safety of a product.
Are you interested in ecology ?
A literal translation of word "ecology" is "a house science". In Greek, the word "oikos" means not only the house but also its surroundings - living space of a man. The term "ecology" was later extended from the theory of a house to the complex environment science.
Is today´s housing healthy ?
Recent researches show that energy savings have lead to limitation of buildings aeration and to accumulation of poisonous substances within the interior. Harmful substances destroy biogenous elements, weaken our organisms, allergize natural substances, cause somatic mutations, and influence our genetic information.
Are you aware that we spend 90% of the day in the interior ?
The unhealthy interior environment weakens man´s vitality and initiates number of unapparent maladies. The medicine and physicians teams find themselves in the situation of firemen who quench fire and its effects. Thus, the deciding factor is the prevention - the interior quality and the quality of the interior equipment.
Does the furniture help or hurt ?
Not only the bed, but all the furniture accompany us during our lives. Usually, we don´t know whether it provides us a good service or whether it harms our health. The increase of spinal defects caused by the quality of resting or sitting by the PC demands increased costs for treatment, social care, and unemployment.
Are we able to manage our "selves" and the ecology ?
Human motivation is personal prosperity that helps to define oneself within his living space and to satisfy the growth of his needs. Limiting factors for the prosperity are only individual safety and health. In addition to the safety social aspects, crucial for human health is also the state of environment and living space, threatened by the production. That is why the priority must be to reflect the ecology in the very production and technological processes.
Why is wood called "material of the third millennium" ?
Wood is the most significant renewable material on this planet. Its processing and disposal after use requires the minimum of energetic incomes, in contrast to metals, plastics, building and other materials. For this reason, the wood is considered as the material of the third millennium.
In the Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology of MUAF in Brno, the wood engineering study programs tackle the above problems within the wider context to find solutions of these complex questions.
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