act/re-act

I find that my life is full of hypocrisies. I am in a very transitional stage of life, so I am OK with being unsure of not knowing exactly what I want or what I do or don't believe in. However, there is one nagging paradox, which is that I love nature and I believe that humans are having an adverse effect on our planet, yet I am choosing to be an industrial designer, whose job it is to produce more things. While I am concerned for the environment, I love making things. I also love having things myself, yet this is totally contrary to my (firm?) belief in simplicity. Last summer somebody gave me a book called 30 Days to a Simpler Life. It seemed so ironic to me that, according to the book's authors, you could not have a simple life without buying their book.

There must be a better way.

What I am coming to realize more and more is that the most important thing that I will learn at RISD will not be a technical skill, but rather how to think. By problem solving our way through difficult assignments we are training ourselves to get better at thinking. Perhaps this is a way to be a zero-impact industrial designer. Is thinking the new making? Several studios in the ID department this semester are dealing with this issue. The service design class is focusing on creating designed systems that facilitate pairing users with goods or services, focusing on user experience. The design for social entrepreneurship class is doing a similar thing with an emphasis on humanitarian aid. These are both ways to utilize our design skills without creating physical objects which will probably (no matter how hard we try to prevent it) end up in a dump within 50 years.

Perhaps it is this contradiction of ethos that has guided my work over the past year. I have taken an interest in using recycled materials, like plastic bottles, shopping bags, and scrap fabric in my work. I have also become very interested in the intersection of the past and the present, and the ways in which designers deal with history, context, technology, and craft. There are some designers that I feel are more successful than others at achieving a blend between past and future, which of course, when well-balanced, creates a meaningful present. George Nakashima, for example, creates contemporary furniture that has a great sense of heritage through his treatment of unique pieces of wood. The woolen goods company Flock creates modern apparel and accessories using a traditional technique and embraces small-scale manufacturing. These designers are inspirational for their efforts to reconcile modern-day business with traditional methods without compromising design.

I don't know what the solution is to my hypocritical dilemma. Should I be a designer who designs ideas instead of products? Can thought be my medium of expression instead of tangible material? Will these make me a happy, and therefore successful, designer? What I do know is that is important to explore every option before making a choice; simultaneously looking to the past and the future.

Craft vs. Design

"A tree is our most intimate contact with nature" -George Nakashima

There is a fine line between design and craft when it comes to furniture. Craft is generally perceived as one-of-a-kind hand-made objects. Design is generally seen as having practical applications and being capable of mass-production. But between these two definitions is a lot of grey area.

George Nakashima is a furniture designer who has dedicated his career to creating custom-made furniture pieces from unique pieces of wood. Though the material and forms are always different, his design process is consistent. First, a tree is selected and the milling process is tailored to get the best possible board. The wood is then dried for several years until it is ready to be used. Nakashima does an intensive study of the selected piece of wood and designs his piece, be it a table, cabinet, chair or bench, around the unique qualities of the wood. Though some typical woodshop machines are used in construction, the majority of the work is done by skilled woodworkers with hand tools. The piece is assembled, finished, and then double-checked by Nakashima for perfection.

The process of making a single piece can take many years. This sort of dedication to production reflects Nakashima's respect of the material. Each piece ends up being an homage to the tree from which it was made. Compare this to how furniture is produced for IKEA or even Knoll. Both of these companies are design-based, but show a totally different relationship to material and process. This comparison actually makes George Nakashima look more like a sculptor or fine artist. But you must also look at the attention he also pays to comfort, practicality, and function. The slope of a chair seat, a smooth cabinet closure, these are the considerations of an industrial designer.

Not everyone can have the liberty of time and budget that Nakashima has, but what he can remind us as industrial designers is to appreciate the materials that we use and consider how we can best honor them. His approach is incredibly thoughtful and represents a craft that is being rapidly replaced with industrial processes that cannot translate the same care into each piece. I really respect Nakashima's designs for their sense of heritage, and hope that I can incorporate his ethos into my own work.

Better by Design

This past weekend's Better World by Design conference presented its attendees with a wide array of issues. Though I didn't go to the conference, I am intrigued by some of the lecture topics that I heard about, particularly UrbanOre, a company based in California. UrbanOre reclaimed used goods from consumers through donations, repairs and cleans the goods, and then resells them for profit. They also have designed zero waste systems for West Virginia and several counties in California.

Flavia, a RISD grad student, gave our ID History class a presentation about the "cradle to cradle" concept, that every object should have a designed lifetime which produces no waste upon death. She also compared our current consumer system to the energy flow chart in nature. In a healthy ecosystem, there are producers (plants, for example), consumers (the animals that eat the plants), and decomposers (say, the fungi that decompose the animal at the top of the food chain when it dies). Each part of this cycle benefits the other parts. The decomposer, especially, which breaks down the waste and transforms it into energy for the producer to start the cycle all over again. Humans, on the other hand, produce goods and consume them with no system in place for decomposing them. By this model, we have no renewable source of energy (hence the petroleum/energy crisis) and no outlet for waste, which will only continue to accumulate. The UrbanOre service is attempting to fill the "decomposer" role that is missing in our society.

This summer I worked with a place called The Rebuilding Center back home in Portland, Oregon. TRC recycles used building materials by accepting donations and also by deconstructing homes that are going to be demolished. The deconstruction process can harvest and save 90% of the materials. The materials are then sold in a warehouse for about 25% of the market price.

See a time-lapse video of a home deconstruction here

This service is desperately needed, and both of these companies provide great models of how material recycling can be beneficial and profitable.

Designing for the World

The lecture that Bruce just gave on humanitarian and disaster relief design was very eye opening. This semester I have been in Chair Studio, where the focus is on personal comfort, ergonomics and style. I have learned a lot about construction methods and manufacturing, as well as just gaining valuable experience, so I do not regret the class at all. Today's class made me wonder, though, what is the point? Do we really need to design something to make peoples' already comfortable lives even more comfortable? This is a question that plagued me last semester when I was working on a gardening tool design assignment. I guess the challenge is to transform whatever you are working on into something that matters and that is meaningful, if that is what's important to you as a designer.

Should humanitarian design start at home? Of course there is intense need for improvement all over the world, especially in third world countries, but the United States for all of its democracy and technology, still battles issues of homelessness, unemployment, obesity and things that effect daily living for those afflicted with these problems. If we can't help ourselves, how can we help others?

I saw this shelter design a couple years ago in a museum, and then found this interesting article article about it in the New York Times.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9903E4DF1E39F934A15751C1A96F958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all
The shelter uses thin sheet plastic to form an inflatable tent. The tent is hooked up to an air grate or air outtake vent. The warm air inflates the structure while also keeping the inhabitant warm. This is a great example of location-specific problem solving. It was designed for use in New York City and can really be used in any urban environment. It would not, however, work in most climates and conditions.



http://framingdevice.com/popup_parasite.html

Below is another shelter design created for an urban environment. Designboom.com, an online design blog, hosted a contest to design a cart that can also function as a shelter. This premise recognizes the existing need for semi-nomadic homeless people who live in a city.

The winning design was made by Panagiotis Dramitinos, Karaolis Alkis, and Alexandros Papageorgiou from Greece. Their cart/shelter design was based off of a modified grocery shopping cart, something that already exists and is commonly used by homeless people, but produces a lot of noise and is considered stolen property. In this new design, the cart has two compartments to seperate belongings from found objects or recyclables. A personal storage cupboard also unfolds to provide a flexible, waterproof shelter. Some other unique features are a rechargable flashlight, waterproof document file, and brakes on the wheels. This design is very thoughtful, but I wonder how it would be funded and produced? It also seems that unless every homeless person in an area was equipped with one, they would become prone to theft. It is, however, a very noble attempt at solving the issue of urban homelessness.

http://www.designboom.com/contest/winner.php?contest_pk=10

Personal Product

In my last essay I pondered the meaning of the past in current design. It made me think about what is important in design. Is it technology? Aesthetics? Emotion? Irony? I discovered that a historical context or reference, no matter how it is applied, adds value and meaning to a product. In this era, where everything seems to be mass-produced, a handmade object with provenance is very rare and seems very valuable. Many these days exist or are somehow created through digital media. Photosharing websites have replaced actual family photo albums, email has replaced letter-writing. We are losing our tangible history. I am growing up on the cusp of an era that could potentially go without documentation. If there is a failure in internet servers or digital technology, anything without a hard copy will be lost. How can we cope with this? Is it an uphill battle? The population of the earth is increasing at an uncontrollable rate, so does it matter if every little thing is recorded?

I believe that in order to maintain our sanity, it is important to feel as though we are connected to this world that we live on. It’s important to know where things come from. A “made in Taiwan” stamp does not instill a sense of craft or personality. There is no reason to keep it. All of these mass produced objects seem disposable because there is no sense of meaning, no personality behind the object. It is our job as designers to connect the object with the person who will use it. That way, hopefully we can create less disposable objects and encourage people to buy less cheap belongings and make more long-term purchases.

One product that does a great job of connecting the material source to the product and the product to the consumer is Flock’s wool cardigan. The designer knits the sweater from the wool of one sheep, then a hang tag shows a photo of the sheep and information about where it is from and when it was harvested. In a less developed society, the sheep would have been raised, the wool sheared, and the sweater knitted by one person. This information however, is lost now. Flock reconnects the user with this visceral information.

Another concept that shows meaning through past is Front Design’s gradually changing painted floor. As more people walk in one area, the paint on the floor chips away, revealing a color underneath. A normal concrete floor is transformed into a map showing the foot traffic of every person who has ever walked through the space.



see the floor here: http://www.frontdesign.se/portfolio.htm


I believe that it is these connections with the past, whether it’s where a material came from or how other humans have interacted with a space, that lend a sense of personal meaning in a world that it becoming less and less personal. In my last essay I pondered the meaning of the past in current design. It made me think about what is important in design. Is it technology? Aesthetics? Emotion? Irony? I discovered that a historical context or reference, no matter how it is applied, adds value and meaning to a product. In this era, where everything seems to be mass-produced, a handmade object with provenance is very rare and seems very valuable. Many these days exist or are somehow created through digital media. Photosharing websites have replaced actual family photo albums, email has replaced letter-writing. We are losing our tangible history. I am growing up on the cusp of an era that could potentially go without documentation. If there is a failure in internet servers or digital technology, anything without a hard copy will be lost. How can we cope with this? Is it an uphill battle? The population of the earth is increasing at an uncontrollable rate, so does it matter if every little thing is recorded?

I believe that in order to maintain our sanity, it is important to feel as though we are connected to this world that we live on. It’s important to know where things come from. A “made in Taiwan” stamp does not instill a sense of craft or personality. There is no reason to keep it. All of these mass produced objects seem disposable because there is no sense of meaning, no personality behind the object. It is our job as designers to connect the object with the person who will use it. That way, hopefully we can create less disposable objects and encourage people to buy less cheap belongings and make more long-term purchases.

One product that does a great job of connecting the material source to the product and the product to the consumer is Flock’s wool cardigan. The designer knits the sweater from the wool of one sheep, then a hang tag shows a photo of the sheep and information about where it is from and when it was harvested. In a less developed society, the sheep would have been raised, the wool sheared, and the sweater knitted by one person. This information however, is lost now. Flock reconnects the user with this visceral information.

Another concept that shows meaning through past is Front Design’s gradually changing painted floor. As more people walk in one area, the paint on the floor chips away, revealing a color underneath. A normal concrete floor is transformed into a map showing the foot traffic of every person who has ever walked through the space.

I believe that it is these connections with the past, whether it’s where a material came from or how other humans have interacted with a space, that lend a sense of personal meaning in a world that it becoming less and less personal.

Past in Present

Design and history go hand in hand. Every designed object bears the qualities of the time during which it was created. Sometimes this is a direct translation, like the use of shiny plastics and metal during the first stages of space exploration. Other times, design can be a reaction to trends or popular culture, like when people started wearing denim in the 1960s , a material usually reserved for low-class workers, whose use in fashion symbolized a radical deviation. By looking at pieces from the past, we can learn something about what that moment in time must have been like. Objects today show modern craftsmanship and materials, manufactured in quantities that reflect contemporary needs.

These traits are all unique to our time, and when any style is taken out of its context its meaning changes. I have noticed that this is a technique used by designers, especially recently. Some people see it a s a cop-out, and that borrowing is not in fact borrowing, but stealing ideas because of a lack of original creativity. On the other hand, the reinterpretation itself is a form of creativity. Does a Louis XIV chair have the same meaning in wood as it does in polycarbonate? It is cleaver, yes, but worthy of the amount of recognition that it got in the press and the design community.

I suppose that anyone can take something old, apply a new material and call it “designed”, which is why I find David Gardener’s “Packaging Lamp” so interesting. He used recycled paper pulp to mold the contour of a lamp. The actual base itself fits the cord and light bulb parts so that the piece can be sold as one unit, with no extraneous hardware. The technique and material are unusual, but speak to modern day needs, which include a reduction of waste and a simple shipping process. These lamps needed a traditional shape to be recognized as a lamp. This lamp with a contemporary abstract shape would not have the same universal appeal and message.

My ID studio class had an interesting discussion recently about the place and purpose of design. Is it OK to create something purely for decoration? It is safe to say that in general there is a bit of a stigma about what is acceptable and what is not. If something is not designed to be humanitarian, environmentally friendly, or employ some new technology, it is seen as frivolous. So Stark’s Ghost Chair, does it have to mean anything of depth or can it just be funny and attractive? Is irony enough to carry a product, or does it need more? Maybe it is these qualities that separate timeless, smart design from trendy design. To have staying power something must be thought provoking and intelligent in itself.

Our class discussion was inconclusive, though it made me reckon back to something I remember hearing a fellow classmate say, “Some people come into the ID department to change the world, but I just like making beautiful things”. There is something very noble in that, too. It is very respectable to aspire to better the world, and I think that it is totally possible for one person to make a huge difference. It is equally respectable to take interest in craft and form. The curtain is setting on the time when hand-crafted objects were the norm, and instead that process has been replaced with mechanized fabrication. By continuing to teach and learn hand crafts, we are preserving a part of the history of design. It is true that most things nowadays can be produced my machine, but it is essential that people still use tools and materials by hand to create objects. That is where it all started, and we must remember this as we go into the future.

Sitting/Chairs

Chairs provide a perfect palette for evaluating the role of functionalism in design. The chair is an object that has served many purposes, and thus had many functions, over the course of its existance. It is a well-known addage, "form follows function", but equally important is "function follows need". I chose to study the need for and meaning of sitting and how this shaped (literally and figuratively) chairs throughout time.