Life Of A Wannabe Designer

Through employing D.I.Y and its techniques you are not only finding an extremely productive solution to a problem but an affordable one. When you consider how many things are discarded due to their “No longer use” why not RE-use and embrace the age old rule of Form following Function. Heskett (2002) said “design is a basic human characteristic” this basic human trait is more evident when necessity is involved if we can only realise this and manipulate it people can solve problems with practical simplicity, inventions made by ordinary people from everyday materials. Hesketts idea of Design being one of the humans’ basic characteristics relates so well to one of Polak’s design principles In which he speaks of thinking like a child. When you are a child the world is so straightforward. Given blocks and Lego, these became the tools to the bottomless pit of their own imagination, from simple geometric squares, to skyscrapers, rocket ships and space stations. Design is bursting form these young skulls showing that we all possess somewhere inside us this “Design Gene”. From travelling around the world, anile Pario Perra observed that humanities necessity is the mother of invention, driven by the need for something we find the 5year old designer deep within. This need to keep dry, provide lighting or shelter gives us great incentive to been driven to create and craft. With design being an essential factor to the quality of human life it just goes to show we all poses the capacity to shape and make our environment in ways to serve our needs and give meaning to life.  To analysis to which extent we shape the world around us in the book Low cost design it revels the 5 Levels of "Low-cost" design.  On the lower end of the scale there are simple objects that are changed from their initial design without special structural alterations (p.36) “Cutting sneakers, to make sandals” (Editoriale 2010). At the other end of the scale at level 5 objects are complete and effective, but most importantly have a high degree of simplicity which is far more beneficial than its original function.   Buckminster said along with others these 3 craft principles to try teach how everyone can impact and manipulate the world around for the better. By taking Individual initiative, doing more with less and solving problems through action. A great example of this is the work of  William Kamkwaka a man whose family was struggling due to famine. But by employing the DIY and its techniques was able to improve his and his families lives by gathering old and used parts from scrap yards including a tractor fan, shock absorber etc and creating an electric Windmill that pumped water for his home (Kamkwamba, 2009) although this is an extreme case of the drive of necessity and his creativity capacity there are much simpler problems that can be dealt with through practicality and simplicity an example of a man cutting a pair of sneakers he found into sandals, this may seems small and insignificant but by doing this he is adapting an inferior product and editing it to be more suitable for the  hot climate.

D.I.Y designs can not only be a new way of practical design but can also help those in need the famous Chinese proverb says “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime” by employing D.I.Y techniques like William Kamkwaka there is a way to think of design in a unconventional way as Buckmister (1981) said “People should think things a fresh and not just accept conventional terms and the conventional way of doing things”

We just need to remember that anyone can create and shape the world around, design doesn’t have to come through patent offices as it is just an “exercise in meeting the challenges inherent in any situation that requires improvement” (Stelzer, 2006) and there is no high greatness than the relevance of solving a problem.   This new outlook on the world will give those a hopeful outlook on a future full of sustainable and or recycled design that helps not just those with disposable income.

 Buckminster, R. (1981) “People should think things a fresh and not just accept conventional terms and the conventional way of doing things” Quoted in Laurence J, Peter, The Peter Plan: A Proposal for Survival (New York: W. Morrow,1976)

Perra, D.P, & Editoriale, S. (2010). “Low Cost Design.Unknown place of origin. Collingham, J. (2010) “Design is the Problem: The Future of Design Must be Sustainable” Retrieved from http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bloomsbury/dsgj/2010/00000013/00000001/art00007?token=004b182fb52c9e3c437a63736a6f7c47795d3b76345f532a3e6f642f46427684870ca67da47 

Mendler, S.& Odell,W.(2000) “The HOK guidebook to sustainable design”  Retrieved from http://www.bcin.ca/Interface/openbcin.cgi?hsimp=yhse-001&hspart=CND&type=ACE909DEB071442E99DF_s_g_e&submit=submit&Chinkey=23190#

Stelzer, K. (2006) "Sustainability = Good Design" Retrieved from https://papyrus.bib.umontreal.ca/xmlui/handle/1866/2490

Heskett, J. (2002). “Toothpicks & Logos, Design in Everyday Life”. New York: Oxford University Press

Polak & Buckminster, R

The power of pen and paper, email vs talking, watching vs learning, feel vs observing.

Designers must ensure craft and good design is not lost during the advancements of rapid digital manufacturing, our environment is littered with quickly discarded print-on-demand plastic novelties. “In a 3D printed future world, people will make what they need, when and where they need it” but for now we print without consideration of form or process. To commit time to handcrafted prototypes means that we consider alot more then the pushing a button and returning minutres to hours later. The romance of making things with your hands has to faded as the plastic in the trash bin begins to rise.

Fisher, M., Fraser, S., Miller, T., Stevens, R., Tinnin, J., & Zwaan, A. (2013). Digital Craft in Digital Space: a paradigm shift in the making. Retrieved from https://blackboard.vuw.ac.nz/bbcswebdav/pid-1717288-dt-content-rid-3029419_1/courses/201501.INDN312.17201/Digital%20_Craft_in_Digital_Space_FullPaper_21.11.11%20with%20authors%281%29.pdf?target=blank

This article discusses the development of technologies and with it the “resounding transformation to the domain of Industrial Design”. This article is in uniscine with the point I would like to express with on how to understand the potential of our new material culture of digital design and fabrication, we must understand the fundamental back ground of the technology and its inherent potentials. Below are a few quotes that will assist me: “With Tech innovation there is an accompanying change about how materials are used, how forms are put together, what they symbolize and how their existence changes the way we reflect upon the design and the design process“

“Digital technologies offer designers a new context to challenge the methods of mass production with Inventive and very different means of making, forms of manufacture, and avenues of distribution within the broader context of virtual systems, services and networks.” “is digital craft an opportunity to explore new forms of production and social practice while re capturing all the richness and diversity we value in traditional forms of craft?”

Lipson, H., & Kurman, M. (2013). Fabricated: The New World Of 3D Printing. Indianapolis, Indiana: Wiley Retrieved from https://books.google.co.nz/books?hl=en&lr=&id=MpLXWHp-srIC&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=Lipson,+H.,+%26+Kurman,+M.+%282013%29.++Fabricated:+The+New+World+Of+3D+Printing+.++Indianapolis,+Indiana:+Wile&ots=Z2c-BWL-Zy&sig=_gvQAgE6JpBfnbFeIEAgjiuqtxU#v=onepage&q&f=false

The book Fabricated talks hypothetically about the not too distant future in which 3D printing is an aspect of everyday lives. From printing breakfast, rescuing trapped miners, and even replacing organs it has developed to a point where in an instant what we desire is a print away. “3D printing offers us the promise of control over the physical world” (p. 11). This power is what I will bring into my essay. “In a 3D printed future world, people will make what they need, when and where they need it” Yet, technologies are only as good as the people using them our environment littered with quickly discarded print-on-demand plastic novelties. For most of human history, we’ve created physical objects by cutting away raw materials but now were creating which is a powerful thing. But with great power comes great responsibility.

Anderson, C. (2013) Makers: the new industrial revolution .London: Random House Business, 2013

Anderson examines the historical parallels between the Maker movement or how he puts it ‘The New Industrial Revolution’ and the second Industrial Revolution. It puts into perspective the impact that the maker culture will have in the following years on the “renaissance of manufacturing”, while showing us how we can apply to the new revolution, the lessons that we've learned from the second Industrial Revolution. 

This ultimatly is what I want to write about as a whole, that with the future so birght we need to consider both past and present and not just print without consideration. Below are a few quotes that will benifit and aid my essay: “Today anyone and everyone can create products in small to medium sized batches in a way traditional manufacturers can’t match. Micro-manufacturing will be a huge driver of future growth”

“Power belongs to those who control the means of production (p. 5)”

“The tools both of invention and production have been democratized, enabling anyone to make anything, fails to recognise the complexity of the design process, and the iterative nature of product development“

“Once an industry goes digital, it changes in profound ways. Not the way things are done but in who’s doing it (p. 18) Once things can be done in regular computers, they can be done by anyone. And that’s exactly what we’re seeing happen now in manufacturing.” “Now anyone, with any idea, anywhere can upload a digital file to a service to have that product made, in small batches or more terrifying…. Large (Anderson, 2013)

“It gave a tremendous sense of self-confidence, that through exploration and learning one could understand seemingly very complex things in one’s environment,” Steve Jobs dad giving him a section of the workspace

Taking things apart to see how they work (p.53) romance of making things with your hands started to fade. “Despite our fascination with screens, we still live in the real world.”

“Seduced by software and the infinite worlds to be created by online. We are designers now. It’s just time to get good at it“

A few more sources: Pye, D. (1995). The Nature and Art of Workmanship. London : Herbert Press

In The Nature and Art of Workmanship David Pye argues that the failure of mass - production is not that it is incapable of producing quality products, but that it has created a system of undifferentiated, uniform and characterless products; a material culture which gives little value to workmanship and craft, and the potential of both.

Leach, N., Weiguo, X. [eds.] (October, 2010).Mechanic Processes: Architecture Biennial Beijing. China Architecture & Building Press

“What is important, however, is that we should not overlook the role of design in facilitating the absorption of the technological within human consciousness. For it is precisely design that facilitates the connectivity that lies at the heart of mechanic processes, and lubricates the processes themselves. And it is design that fosters the ‘sensuous correspondence’ with the world, that flares up at that vital moment of assimilation afforded through visual expression”.(p. 12)

McCullough, M. (1996). Abstracting craft the practiced digital hand. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Retrieved from http://jdh.oxfordjournals.org/content/11/1/102.full.pdf+html

What something is and how it is perceived are two very different things. In this week’s lecture and readings the relationship between City Planner and Flaneur clearly demonstrates this. As the City planner has meticulously planned the path people walk, areas they sit and spaces they converse this barely scratches the surface of how people actually interact the metropolis surrounding. I’m not too sure if I understand this quote by Lucas but I feel as though it is talking about how some only perceive what is in front of them reaching what they the planner thinks is the limit. “The everyday has a certain strangeness that does not surface it is only its upper limit, outlining itself against the visible” Whereas the Flaneur is the perception, the Flaneur “understands the sheer enjoyability of the modern city” around them in a way that is unseen to the planner. Myself as a designer can relate as although I may design a product with a specific intention the consumer may use it in ways that I can’t imagine.

References: Lucas, R. (2008). ‘Taking a Line for a Walk’: Walking as an

Aesthetic Practice. (p. 171.)

 Certeau, M. (2009). “Walking In The City.” Design Studies: A Reader.

Brody, D. Oxford: Berg. (p. 247, 248.)

   Leading lines

Not only to focus attention but also as elements have that added a dynamic sense of movement and life.

 Phots draw the eye of the viewer and how in design language it is all about the perspective as a designer I look at world analysing the point of origin its something I cannot turn off my eye picks up on theses converging patterns.

 The depth of spatial understanding in primitive and cultures still perplexes modern science

 Concerned with physical articulation of space; the amount and shape of the void contained and generated by building being as material a part of its existence as the substance of its fabric.

 Skenography a method creating illusions of depth

later developed into a form of perspective drawing called aktinography

Designers suddenly realized that they could translate their visual perceptions into a apparently comprehensible and manipulative series of delineated spatial events, capable of accurately rendering a design intention

 We see an object because each point of it directs a ray into the eye

 The very word ‘per-spective’ means

“seeing through a drawing, a window looking into or at a two dimensional illusion of space” (Porter, 1997)

 Contradicted the very nature of visual perspection as it caused the view to freeze in time and space

 Mumford - ‘increased almost infinitely the plane of the foreground from which those lines had their point of origin’

 Sensations of Space; design education philophies cocepts of a space and form are usually separated and regarded respectively as the negative and positive of the physical world, a world where solid objects rreside and where the void – the mere absence of substance – Is surrounded in atmospheric emptiness.

 Our own physical size can fluctuare in responsise to a psychological spatial relationship, our body seemingly growing or decreasing in stature when confined in small spaces.

 Perceptual conditioning. Culturally we live in a rectilinear world – aowrd of space defined by buildings and boxes charicterised by straight lines and rightangle corners. An over exposure to this kind of environment has meant that our vision being continually bombarded with rectilinear information has in a sbutle way developed a highly condition and specialized persecption.

 Porter, M. (1997). The Architect’s Eye: Visualization and Depiction of Space in Architecture. London: E & FN Spon

The punctum is the element of your surroundings which punctuates the image

It's the eye catcher

3

The punctum is a rupture, a discontinuation in the fabric of received knowledge

. It is the only medium which enables access both to reality – that the object we are looking at no longer in fact exists – and to the truth – that what we are looking at is, nevertheless, there. This is ‘the unheard-of identification’, as Barthes puts it. 6 Here, then, lies the paradox of Barthes’s phenomenology – the punctum which allows him to see the essence of photography is  itself the essence of photography. The photograph has a double function: it both conjoins reality and truth to show that what is not there is, and it is, itself, the fact of this mourning, this ever-presence of death within life, this ‘intractable reality’.

 The passage of a Void

 This is the bit to use " ‘sting, speck, cut, little hole – and also a cast of the dice… it is that accident which pierces me (but also bruises me, is poignant to me)’.3 The punctum is a rupture, a discontinuation in the fabric of received knowledge. "

 Punctum in Photography

the mystery , that which is almost missing  in a sense that it is indescribable. it can not be just arrested by words. it is mostly 'triggered by the detail in the background'

  just say that you were contenctrating on ruptures in your environments and capturing them

Photo Shoot 4. I think this time round I actually have some re-occurring ideas coming through. Without even realising it. Something to do with the dark obviously and the shadows light create.

These images weren't possible without both Light & Dark. Pretty stoaked how cool these turned out haha 

Haiku time: “We walk but don’t see. Our busy lives consume us. Small, Big, Close, Far, Look.” 

Aspects: - Flaneur - Detail shots - Light and Dark - Shadows

Looking at the details of the everyday. Light and dark creates shadows of a world unseen. Design entails both light and dark a tightrope that creates shadows of detail.

Project 2 - First Semi Handin This has taken me a while to figure out, I reviewed photos I had taken wondering why I had taken them, I read into and researched all and I mean all topics covered in this course to make sense of what I wanted to photograph and why.

Looking into one of the readings of “Walking in the City” by Certeau, M.(2009) it talks about “be(ing) lifted out of the city’s grasp”  and how it looks from steeping back. Our own experiences defining it, influencing it. An interesting TED talk by Tony Fadell talked about looking at things from extremities far and close doing so helps those to bring a new clarity. “the everyday has a certain strangeness that does not surface, or whose surface is only its upper limit, outlining itself against visible” (Certeau’s, 2009)(p248)  

“Projection of an opaque past and uncertain future onto a surface that can be delt with”  (Certeau’s ,2009)(p248)

These experiences that shape the city we live, are not noticeable in the strangeness of the everyday but what about night. Once life has left its street. The streets and walls a projection of the past the once clean walls, roads, sidewalk have become opaque from the countless interaction of everyday life in the city. The approaching sun bringing the future that will yet again influence it.

Trying to full comprehend this I stumbled upon an amazing quote written long ago by Shams-i-Tabrizi  (1185-1248)

“Cities are erected on spiritual columns. Like giant mirrors they reflect the hearts of their residents. If those hearts darken and lose faith, cities will lose their glamour.” ALL THIS BEING SAID: I want to photograph the city reflecting the lives that dwell in it and how the night reveals all. Certeau, M. (2009). Walking In The City. In D. Brody (Eds.), Design Studies: A Reader (pp. 246-252). Oxford: Berg.