Showcase 2022 Student Spotlight: Samantha Maharaj

Records of Restoration by Samantha Maharaj

BA (Hons) Interior Architecture and Design

Records and Restoration is a project based in Manchester’s Northern Quarter which will house an archive for prosthetic limbs. Prosthetics are necessary objects whose complexity is often overlooked. The prosthetics featured in this archive highlights the evolution of this once very standardized object and shows how technological advancement has made it possible for users to explore their individuality thereby empowering them and boosting their self-confidence.

This reimagined space, also aims at targeting societal stigmas by emphasizing the fact that prosthetics should not be made to blend in, but rather, stand out and celebrate that fact that each is different.

The building’s key spaces allow the past to be studied in order to inform the present and future of prostheses. This will aid in the continued development of prosthetic limbs in an attempt to ensure that users, regardless of who they are or what they look like, are able to access prosthetics which are an extension of who they are rather than an artificial attachment.

Samantha Maharaj, creator, said: “This project has been quite intriguing from its inception. The fact that prostheses first began with a wooden Egyptian toe and have evolved into a bionic arm evidences the power of technological advancement.

Prosthetics allows persons to regain an element of themselves which they have lost. Therefore, it was important to me that this space was designed with a very humanistic approach which would explore the past in an attempt to restore users’ self-confidence through their prosthetics in the present and future.”

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