This Master’s thesis focuses on a daybed with a unique folding mechanism, which has been passed down through the maternal line of my family, now spanning four generations.

Methodically, it is grounded in practice-based research, drawing on direct investigation of the daybed’s mechanism, genealogical inquiry and theoretical literature, a combination that positions the mechanism itself as a primary site of research and knowledge production. The research materialises that the mechanism is the primary reason for daybeds’ continued existence.

The thesis argues that the daybed was, or rather is, durable because the mechanism’s functional and spatial versatility enabled the daybed to remain relevant across shifting domestic and social contexts: the durable mechanism made it versatile and the versatility made it durable across generations. The breakdown of the non-structural elements, however, raised a generational threshold. In its deteriorated state the daybed could not have been passed on. To “future” the object required understanding how it worked.

Drawing on this case, the research proposes a broader argument: that the durability of objects like this daybed cannot be reduced to its material composition alone, but is instead produced relationally, through the “fit” between an object’s affordances and the conditions that surround it over time.