KASA

A second life. A softer landing.

An upcycled bean bag developed with a student team for the Houston Furniture Bank. A study in how discarded mattress materials could become a useful object and a new source of value.

KASA’s long rectangular grey woven floor cushion, with softly filled corners and a simple sewn cover — KASA’s rectangular cushion form and grey woven cover.

When: 2021 · University of Houston
My role: Research · Business development · Writing · Team collaboration
Where it stands: University team project · Physical prototypes & service proposal

Start with what is already there.

A discarded mattress is also a collection of materials: foam, fabric, springs, and structure. For the Houston Furniture Bank, recovering those materials was part of a much larger operation supporting people who needed furniture.

Our brief asked how design could create more value from that existing material stream. KASA became a proposal for turning recovered foam and fabric into an adaptable bean bag that could fit the organization’s skills, equipment, and resale operation.

My contribution centered on research, business development, and writing. The project joined those questions to the team’s material exploration, physical prototypes, and design refinement.

What could this material become before we call it waste?

Understand the work behind the material.

A site visit made the process concrete: mattresses arriving, materials being separated, and people working around the limitations of the equipment. The research examined how materials moved through the warehouse, where labor was concentrated, and what could be reused.

The opportunity had to work within that setting. A new product would need a manageable assembly process, a useful place in the existing inventory, and a plausible relationship between recovered material, labor, and selling price.

Original Houston Furniture Bank site-visit notes and photographs of mattress recovery and sorting — Site-visit research into material recovery, equipment, and the warehouse workflow.

Let the material argue back.

The team tried different ways to create support from the recovered materials. Loose polyurethane foam compressed too readily; a pocket-coil stool felt unstable; a densely vacuum-packed form introduced weight and extra assembly steps.

The roll-top direction offered a simpler way to contain a mixture of polyurethane and memory foam while leaving enough freedom for the cushion to change shape. Foam size, packing density, the liner, and the cover all influenced the result.

These trials turned a broad upcycling ambition into a practical design question: how much structure does a soft object need, and how much should come from the person using it?

Original photographs of the team cutting foam, sewing fabric, and trying early seating forms — Early exploration: foam, pocket coils, sewing, and the first handmade prototype.

Original comparison of KASA sandwich, vacuum-packed, and roll-top prototypes — Three prototype directions compared for support, comfort, and assembly.

A simple form that can settle.

The resulting object is a long, rectangular fabric cushion. It can lie flat or fold into an informal seat against a wall, letting the foam move with the way it is used. The original proposal explored adult, child, and pet sizes.

A woven outer cover, inner liner, zipper, and mixed foam filling keep the construction legible. The grey exterior gives the recovered material a quiet presence in a room.

KASA’s grey rectangular cushion folded into a floor seat in a sunlit reading corner — The same rectangular form, folded into a floor seat.

Original close photograph of KASA’s grey outer cover, black zipper, and red patterned inner liner — The original prototype’s cover, zipper, and inner liner.

Original photograph of the completed KASA prototype folded against a wall — The original physical prototype in its seated arrangement.

Design the route into use.

My business-development work examined material costs, labor, proposed prices, and the investment needed to simplify foam preparation. The team also considered fabric patterns, cutting, shredding, mixing, and sewing as one production sequence.

Those figures were estimates developed for the 2021 proposal. Their purpose was to test whether the object could make sense for the organization, alongside the work of making it comfortable.

KASA taught me to look beyond the finished object. The way a product is made, the work it asks of people, and the system it enters are all part of its design.

Original KASA manufacturing timeline and estimated adult, child, and pet cost breakdowns from 2021 — Production and cost study from the original 2021 proposal.

A shared piece of work.

KASA was developed with David Edquilang, Jacob Roberts, and Monika Galvan. The original credits identify David with design refinement and film production; Jacob with concept development, prototyping, and producing; Monika with design ideation, graphic design, and writing; and me with research, business development, and writing.

Watch the original project film

Explore the complete original presentation