3D Modeling for Furniture Designers:RISD

Stitch

2008-06-01T19:31:00.003-04:00

A modern twist on the sewing table...

elisa's chaise-table

2008-05-27T13:22:00.002-04:00

This is a chaise-table, combining a seating surface and a tabletop to make a complete furniture piece that is both comfortable and functional for its user.

INVANITY

2008-05-27T11:34:00.002-04:00

Vanity for the power-suit woman...mirrored and floral concealed by a typical desk stature. Legs for hiding the secretive.

'Awk-Nouveau' Side Table

2008-05-24T12:38:00.003-04:00

Using Hector Guimard's Side Table (e.1904-7) as a point of departure, this project used CAD to explore continuous and curvilinear forms.

Angela Wehrle's Kangaroo Chair

2008-05-24T10:50:00.003-04:00

This chair was inspired by Kem Weber's "Airline Chair." The essential elements borrowed from that chair were the cantilevered wooden frame, the suspended upholstered seat, and the "thick and thin" proportions of the frame. The feet of this chair were inspired by the feet and tails of kangaroos.

Thanks

2008-05-18T11:08:00.002-04:00

Hey Chris,
I think I speak for everyone when I say thanks for a great semester. Your dedication to the class always surprises me, your teaching skills and personality really made the semester seamless, interesting, clear and overall just a fun way to cover the material. You're a terrific instructor.

Have a great summer.

Continuous Surfacing

2008-05-14T10:40:00.006-04:00

from DesignBoom - Brodie Neil's (RISD alumni?) new collection, debuting at ICFF. The sinuous, seamless forms of his “Jet” desk would be a very challenging modeling task in CAD - not only making all parts flow into one curvature continuous body, but also the branching of one part into another. If you don’t believe me, ask Pete Oyler, whose current experimentation with neo-art nouveaux prompted this posting.

After having spent a semester immersed in CAD modeling technology, what do you think of this kind of work?

chris look!

2008-05-09T00:18:00.001-04:00

i totally figured out how to render reflective color in solidworks, it only works if youre in the "dark room" scene, dont know why exactly.

Resources on the web for SolidWorks and Rhino users

2008-05-06T22:34:00.004-04:00

Rhinoceros homepage - a good starting point

Rhino Web based News group - search the archives or post new questions to the forum frequented by students, pro's, experts and Rhino software developers. A good place to go if you get stuck.

Rhino Wiki - Like wikipedia, but for Rhino.

Rhino3DHelp - website with tips and tutorials

List of Rhino tutorials - mixed bag - some good, some not so good.

SolidWorks Homepage

Cap Inc Tech Tips - Some good lessons for Solidworks modeling

CadJunky - Some good demonstrational and tutorial videos - mostly solidworks. Not sure about the name.

Books on Solidworks and Rhino

2008-05-06T21:00:00.003-04:00

In case you were looking for a reference book to supplement the tutorials and help files included with the software, and information available on the web, Amazon has several options to consider:

Inside Rhinoceros 4

SolidWork Bible SolidWorks for Dummies Inside SolidWorks

More from Bill Cunningham - Spring Coats

2008-05-06T20:48:00.004-04:00

With more nice weather outside, have a look/listen here to more great analysis of spring fashion by New York Times style guru Bill Cunningham.

Some Videos

2008-04-17T15:14:00.002-04:00

this is entitled (>’.')>=O____l_*__O=<('.'<), (2008). Watch it once at normal distance and then from 15 feet away.

http://oliverlaric.com/e.htm
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

and this is part of a piece called Give Us Today Our Daily Terror, 2008. It's an exact copy of Hitchcock’s 1963 film The Birds from which all birds have been removed. By Martijn Hendriks.

http://www.martijnhendriks.com/?page_id=114%3Cbr%20/%3E

More on Myto

2008-04-16T14:30:00.003-04:00

DesignBoom has great coverage of Konstantin Grcic's Myto chair in Milan (as has been discussed here before). The display shows early models, prototypes, and testing procedure. Also interesting to see in the image below is that they might also be showing parts that were made during the development of the mold - it looks to me like these ones might not have filled properly?

Finally Spring is here.

2008-04-12T13:21:00.006-04:00

Have a look/listen to this great Audio slide show by the New York Times's "On the Steet" style guy - Bill Cunningham - about Spring Style. Please excuse this post for being off topic. Enjoy the nice weather.

2008-04-09T20:08:00.003-04:00

i was recently poking around on the web site of the group that calls themselves "sans facon." i'm not so sure if what they display could be called thier work, but rather they are discoveries. from what i understand they find unintentionally beautiful man made interventions in nature and in the urban setting and call attention to them as a form of public art. some examples (in case that wasn't clear)

ustogether

2008-04-08T08:41:00.003-04:00

I'm sure everybody has seen this tub shot in Id or Surface magazine. I love the sterile, fun use of materials these guys use to create a weird modern bathroom. I also haven't seen the bathroom reinvented in this way. I've always wanted an ostentatious glass swimming pool and I think the fish tank feel to the tub and sink allude to that quality, but aren't overdone. These guys probably work on some sort of cad software to make their molds, as everybody usually does. I think the cad modeling has created the slick feel of these objects.

http://www.ustogether.eu/

Tim Hawkinson

2008-04-07T09:28:00.003-04:00

I love tim hawkinson's work. its very personal and sort of obsessive, self portraits that address every aspect of his existence.

5 things i love and hate about CAD drawing

2008-04-07T09:11:00.002-04:00

Love:
1. making a solid form out of nothing but conceptual computer matter.
2. no chipboard and hotglue in sight.
3. that moment when a feature actually works when it didnt work the first 50 times you tried to use it.
4. sometimes it makes me feel really competent.
5. precision... im a perfectionist, okay?

HATE
1. that stupid pop up error window that doesn't help you, it just condescends you.
2. when youre in the process of selecting which parts to feature, and then swivel the view to select other parts, but cant get the cursor to leave the swivel icon, and therefore cant continue to select the parts, and you have to start over. what the hell is up, solidworks?
3. some things just dont make sense. they just dont.
4. sometimes it makes me feel really incompetent.
5. blech... windows.

Furniture Made in CAD

2008-04-07T09:07:00.003-04:00

Sorry guys, ill be posting some old assignments... i fell off the blog bandwagon for a while.

This piece was clearly made in CAD, you can see the transition from many seats to one flowing form, and most likely, i think that this piece was made as a solid and then the cross sections were cut from that.

Designer/Artist

2008-04-03T09:08:00.002-04:00

I have recently been passed along this you tube video that you should all check out, AMAZING animation with quite a catchy song...Le Le all the way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_1xBSaai0k

On Kawara

2008-03-20T11:22:00.002-04:00

So, this Japanese conceptual artist is not really my favorite artist. I just think it is pretty intense/ borderline insane what work he has done. If you don't know, he has painted the date, ex: March 20th, 2008, on a canvas every day since 1966. He has done some other conceptual work, and sometimes he includes paper clippings of the days paper, but for the most part he has spent 52 year painting every day the date.

Campana Brothers

2008-03-19T21:34:00.005-04:00

I really enjoy the work of these two Brazilian furniture designers. One is a trained architect, the other a lawyer. Apparently, the lawyer does more of the design work and the architect works more on the business end of the things. I appreciate how imaginative and playful their work is and always find their efforts refreshing. I'm sure you're all familar with their work but here are a few images to refresh the memory.

Eero Saarinen

2008-03-19T20:54:00.007-04:00

One of my favorite designers is Eero Saarinen. I was exposed to his work at a young age- my grandparents have a set of tulip chairs, which I've always loved, and they live near St. Louis, so I visited the Gateway Arch numerous times growing up. I had no idea they were designed by the same person until a few years ago.

Love/Hate Relationship

2008-03-13T12:01:00.002-04:00

Why I Love CAD:

Precision- it is very easy to draw things exactly the size/length you want
(good for perfectionists!)
Snap-to (midpoint, tangent, perpendicular, etc.)
Fun patterns/textures to add to your models (wood grain spray bottle, anyone?)
CAM & CNC technologies/applications
Pixar!

Why I Hate CAD:

Rebuild Errors
Programs are expensive and often not Mac compatible
Designed objects that look too CAD-y
Decline in traditional animation with nice, hand painted backgrounds (old Disney)
CAD renderings can look nice, but I would be sad if hand-rendering died out completely

2008-03-13T02:00:00.002-04:00

Love:

1. Undo/redo
2. Cut/Copy/Paste
3. The clarity, portability, accessability and adaptability it gives ideas
4. The time it can save
5. Extreme accuracy and the ease with which that can be transferred to production/fabrication

Hate:

1. The time it can waste
2. The immaturity of it.
3. The expense of the software
4. It is for me a very sterile, disconnected way of working
5. Parent/child relationships and how difficult they can make organizing the order of operations

Love/Hate CAD

2008-03-12T22:47:00.002-04:00

Love:
1) Making new planes
2) That I can see it from all angles just by playing with the rotate button
3) When it works right
4) That it ryhms with many other words
5) Extruding, and the word extrude

Hate:
1) The beeping noise that goes along with the "undefined" message
2) The "what's wrong" box that comes up that I don't understand
3) When it won't let me click on what I want to click on
4) When it won't let me move things to where I want them
5) That you have to draw a rectangle from the corner

love/hate

2008-03-12T21:03:00.002-04:00

5 things I love about cad:

1: the rotate tool: you cant do that with hand drawing.
2: the ability to see an object in 3 dimensions without having the cut or glue anything.
3: being able to switch from a solid model, to a model made of just lines, or a combo of both.
4: smart dimensioning.
5: the crust texture.

5 things I hate about cad:

1: Having to run windows on my computer.
2: vague error messages.
3: not knowing the smartest order in which to build things. thus making my feature tree way longer than it needs to be.
4: not being able to make a rectangle move outward from a center point.
5: im a slow learner.

Top 5s

2008-03-12T14:18:00.008-04:00

5 Things I Hate About CAD

1. Drawing with a Computer.
2. The computer is unable to read my mind or see inside my head. However, computer mind reading is being developed. http://www.bbc.co.uk/northyorkshire/fun/games/mindreader/index.shtml
3. The 'over-defined' error alert in SolidWorks.
4. Staring at a computer monitor.

http://health.dailynewscentral.com/content/view/140/62
5. False sense of revolution... Think: The Segway

5 Things I Love About CAD

1.The potential of CAD programs to enable more socio-cultural responsive design. http://laptop.org/

2. Ability (once proficient) to model and work through ideas much faster than mock-ups/full-scale models.
3.Ellipitical tool... SO much easier than hand drafting an ellipse.
4.Ability to email CAD files... especially when working collaboratively
5.Changing dimensions and measurement units with relative ease.

hate and love/like

2008-03-11T11:11:00.004-04:00

Not in any particular order

5 things

I hate....

1. that when I'm trying to produce a feature and there is an error in my sketch, Solidworks won't be more specific on what that error is.

2. that the learning curb for solid works and other cad programs is steep, but it will eventually plateau, until it is outdated and I have to learn a new program every two years.

3. that the Polar Express was made possible by cad. http://www.artof3d.com/downloads/HumanCgKerlow.pdf

4. bad CAD design lacks the sensitivity and craftsmanship that Chris is always talking about. Many designs produced on the computer look overworked, streamlined, and homogeneous. I'm afraid this will become the standard and be considered good design. I'm not sure how I feel about this chair but it has obviously been assisted by cad in its production and is a good example of an overworked, streamlined piece of furniture. http://www.nextnature.net/?p=1546

5. building on#4 my concern for the popularity in cad will result in Cad being the primary way of prototyping objects that would once have been built.(not likely though)

Things I like/love...

1. The possibility I might be proficient in this program some day.

2. When I'm out of school, Solidworks will give me the opportunity to design efficiently and accurately without a fully equip shop.

3. Cad camps exist. Nothing is better than a camp for the indoors kids pretending to be outdoor inclined. http://www.umaine.edu/set/cadcamp/

4. The possibility that the interface will in a way revert to an easier way of constructing virtual objects in a virtual 3-d space. Some interface branching off of the i-phone. http://community.machinedesign.com/blogs/software/archive/2008/01/20/big-trends-in-the-future-of-cad.aspx.

5. the medical benefits cad provides. http://www.rt-image.com.com/Examine_Mammography_The_Case_for_CAD_Examining_the_technology_and_

d_its_implicati/content=9504JC4856869640769A72448080441

rapid prototyping

2008-03-09T23:22:00.003-04:00

In case you haven't already seen this you should watch this video on 3d printing. its pretty awesome and it makes me want to print little models all day long! enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAt2xD1L8dw

rapid prototyping and furniture.

2008-03-06T15:16:00.002-05:00

I have a few links dealing with furniture produced using rapidprototyping. They range from rigid mathematically designed lighting pieces to freer pieces like front's sketch furniture. Freedom of Creation is a company that specializes in 3d printed furniture and accessories, including printed woven textiles. Most of this stuff had to be either designed or processed in a CAD system of some sort. What is really interesting to me about this is the ability to produce customizable objects on demand.

The New York Times

A blog

Another blog

Science Direct article

Louise Campbell

2008-03-06T08:31:00.003-05:00

I think that these two chairs by Louise Campbell Studio were produced with the aid of computer modeling. The shapes and details appear so intricate in the first chair especially, more so than the second chair.

melding of materials

2008-03-06T00:05:00.004-05:00

these examples appear cumpoter-designed because of the seamlessness of the seating surfaces on each. from experience i know it is difficult to accuratley convey these sorts of shapes with pen and hand.

but this is not the only element that stands out to me. the fact that there are at least two different materials in each piece leads me to believe these were concieved using CAD.
rendering these would make it much easier to play with materials and see them next to eachother on the piece.

i don't so much like the examples that i have given: they are both rather stretched looking and have unfortunate stances. the consideration put into the planes seems to have eaten into the time put into proportion.

WELCOME TO THE NAUHAUS

2008-03-05T23:21:00.004-05:00

In his 2008 tome, DESIGN NAU, Dr. Christopher Tolles proclaims the Cinderella Table (featured at the MOMA) "... the quintessential exemplar of old vs. new. In its unflinching embrace of our postmodern schizophrenia, Cinderella embodies the emotional duality of a society on the brink of self-annihilation."

Squiggly Bed

2008-03-05T23:11:00.002-05:00

This chaisse/ bed I believe was designed by some sort of CAD program, but I am not sure. I guess the most obvious reason is the fluid shape that I could easily imagine on a computer screen. I also think that because the piece is made with just one continuous shape (or at least appears that way) it looks like something that was just origionally drawn on the computer, and possibly made with some sort of device controlled by the computer.

I like this chaisse, it looks like it would be fun to have around, and sit in. I also think the shape is nice, and the space it creates for the person sitting in it would be nice as well. However, it is not my most favorite thing in the world. I also like the random person standing behind it.

Aeron Chair

2008-03-05T10:50:00.006-05:00

Designed in 1994 by Bill Stumpf and Don Chadwick for Herman Miller, the Aeron chair revolutioned task chairs. Given the extreme emphasis on creating an ergonomically accurate and mass producible office chair, I have no doubt that CAD was both integral and necessary to the design and development of the Aeron Chair.

I think that there is a unique aesthetic synthesis between form and function in the Aeron chair. I have yet to use this chair for any significant amount of time but do think that it is a good example of CAD enabling new and potentially revolutionary modes of design.

Easy Stacking Chair

2008-03-04T18:50:00.007-05:00

Designed by Jerszy Seymour

http://www.dwr.com/productdetail.cfm?id=6950

There are 2 main reasons why I believe that this chair was created using CAD. First, the complex curves in addition to the stacking feature would have been very labor intensive to design and physically make without CAD software. Second, the fact that it is injection molded plastic with a fairly thin profile leads me to think CAD was employed, again because I think CAD would have significantly reduced design/production time & cost. If CAD hadn't been used, I think that it would cost much more that it does ($120- $60 on sale!)

I'm not a huge fan of this chair. The style of it is close to my personal aesthetic, but I think there is something awkward about it. I think that certain design decisions were made to allow the chair to stack, but in turn hurt the aesthtics of the piece (mostly in the design/shape of the legs).

small,fast, out of control

2008-03-02T09:04:00.006-05:00

I haven't read this book yet, just excerpts, but the concept of singularity in relation to design is a curious thought. How will the availability of these evolving, complex nanotechnologies eventually affect the intimacy of the design process? Will the basic skills of using our hands and bodies to produce objects become moot as technological interface becomes smaller, faster and available to the masses? Digesting these theories is overwhelming, but I think it's interesting based on the quick advancements in technology within my lifetime, and the drastic development that will occur (Moore's law and stuff like that) in the future. It might be a shitty book in Ian's opinion, but some interesting mind blowing topics to discuss.

http://singularity.com/aboutthebook.html

remember the good ol days

2008-02-28T21:57:00.003-05:00

im not one of those disney freaks, you know the type... but the first thing i thought of when we were presented with this question was the transition from cell animation to 3d animation. i feel like the 3d animation lacks the charm and presence of the traditional cell animations of our youth. the cad animation that has become an industry standard is colder, less personal,
it has nothing human about it, even though it is "more realistic" its just missing the human touch. i guess i just miss seeing the pencil marks dance around underneath the paint, and thinking with wonder about the millions of slides that create motion, all the work that went into hand crafting childrens entertainment. also, the old animations had all those hidden "dirty" secrets drawn into them.

awesome
lame

In the future......

2008-02-27T23:28:00.004-05:00

While I believe that CAD drawing, rendering, and other applications are very useful and might arguably be essential to todays world of design, I think there is often (or possibly always) something lost when an individuals thoughts are processed through the computer. What is often lost is the sense of the creator. To me, at least everything I have seen of computer modeling, seems too perfect and has no sense of character. The artist has a limited interaction with their materials (the computer) and I think that this interaction is important in creating interesting work. In CAD there aren't any accidents. The computer mouse and keyboard are not that exhilerating to use, while the act of drawing is so much more exciting and involved, which I think translates into the work that is created.

I understand that often CAD programs are used to create models to work off of, or just as a way of generating ideas, but it makes me wonder if we could rely too much on these programs and less at our own aptitude. Also, in the future (haha) what will become of these programs, and will they take the place of the process of human creation all together? I don't really think this will happen, but I think that could happen, which is a little strange.

PS: The picture I think is very in the futurey. Also, it looks fun. Yea.....

hidden potential

2008-02-27T21:51:00.002-05:00

Computer Aided Design allows people to create an object, building, space, etc. three-dimensionally without having to actually build it, necessarily.

Has anyone seen the show on hgtv hidden potential? its kind of cheesy but the idea is that homebuyers look at 3 different homes that are in need of serious renovations.

Then, an architect comes along and does really nice renderings of what the spaces could look like based on a budget and timeline and so on. Then, based on those renderings the buyers chose a home that they think suits them the best.

The sad part is that after they buy the house im pretty sure they're on their own and probably have no idea how to do such extreme renovations in a timely fashion and on a budget but at least they've seen its hidden potential!

Welcome to the world of the LASER-CUTTER

2008-02-27T20:29:00.006-05:00

First there were artisans
result: amazingly crafted, highly ornamental objects
Then, whatever happened--laziness, efficiency, utilitarian-ideals comes minimalism and perhaps a lack of decoration with a fresh simplicity.
Now it seems the options are endless, intricate ornamentation is now affordable as the artisan is no longer needed necessarily (I say this only for argument sake, as the artisan is ALWAYS needed)
Anyways, my point is, the laser-cutter, along with the cnc router, has almost prescribed a design movement in it's own, a few examples follow:
Perhaps a mere distrcation to functional-design, detrimental or not, atleast ornamentation is back on the table...

Bambi's with laser beam eyes....to be continued

2008-02-27T20:22:00.002-05:00

I think cad has brought given modeling a huge advantage in terms of being allowing for infinite and readily transferable duplications of drawings as well as speed and, in some cases, ease of use. It has also homogenized the presentation of objects, leaving very little opportunity to distract from, or complement, a given object.

3-D Artists

2008-02-27T20:08:00.005-05:00

This is more on the fine-arts side of things, but I thought it was interesting how artists have utilized the photorealistic rendering capabilities of CAD software. I suppose this also could relate to computer animation/game design.

all images from:
http://raph.com/3dartists/artgallery/ag-ii1.html
(if you go to the site & click on specific thumbnails, it'll tell you which softwares were used to render the pieces)

which came first?

2008-02-27T20:07:00.000-05:00

so this is how they teach one to draw in the industrial design world:
and this is how my sketches looked while they were training me:

in any event, this is what computer aided drawings look like:
since two of these images look the same, i am wondering about the timeline of drawing style developements. . . did we train the computers to render like us, or did we train ourselves to sketch like computers?

How Has CAD Effected Design

2008-02-27T16:13:00.003-05:00

I think that CAD has enabled designers to work more quickly, to modify design elements more easily, and has helped to visualize objects and spaces in a 3-dimensional way. It has also standardized drawing elements which helps different disciplines to collaborate on projects with more ease.

Technology, Craft, and Skill

2008-02-27T10:47:00.008-05:00

Technology,Craft and the Transformation of Skill Craft as interpretation of invention
Christopher Rose, "Five Essays On Design," Aardvark Publishing Co. LLC

Technology=how we do something.
Complexity= a condition midway between a total mess and total organisation.
Craft= reflection on a doing process in real time.

“The hand concentrates for you.” Multiple perspectives are needed to locate something
in our cognitive world. The hand has extremely complex and hierarchical degrees of
freedom, providing just such multiple perspective. But we know that only a small proportion of sensory input to the whole body is consciously experienced, the rest could be said to construct our extensive ‘haptic’ body of knowledge(Our ‘bodily intelligence’ we are mostly not consciously aware of until it is needed or is drawn upon.)

In the now dated but significant critique of the negative effects of overly contrived
ordering in city life, The Uses of Disorder, the following quote from author Richard
Sennettis relevant to the craft-technology relationship. ‘In pre-industrial workshop production systems, the experience of making a product was more important than a predetermined standard image of the ‘whole’ to be made. These craftsmen conceived that to define in advance what a thing should look like would interfere with their notion of ‘efficiency’, that is, with the freedom of the craftsman to exploit the materials and forms during the making process. In an industrial situation the product to be made is conceived beforehand so that its realisation is a passive routine, not an active experience of exploration’. (paraphrased from Richard Sennett, The Uses of Disorder1973)

‘Making’ is experience based, therefore connected to unconscious thinking and
knowledge as well as to conscious intention. This connectivity anchors the process and
results in experimental knowledge being discovered and expressed, not merely in the
symbolic representation that is a ‘design’ that is then ‘followed’ by others. The industrial situation Richard Sennett refers to, necessarily involves this representational threshold;something absent from the experience of the craftsperson. In my first job as an architectural assistant I produced a very careful working drawing of a 18th century cottage that was to be restored. The builder called by the office and I asked him if he would like the drawing. “Yes, thanks, I can use that” he said. A week later I visited the site. The drawing had been folded into a wad that wedged open a window. The builder already knew what had to be done and in fact did a great job. There are situations like this where working drawings are of little relevance. Such a representational convention in this case (the drawing) had almost no relevance to the makers skill. It is this skill that connects his actions to the materials and processes, even if the drawing did have some defined cultural role for other people elsewhere in the social context (contractual
notions, centralised information storage, planning etc.)

In other situations of course, where skills based precedent is not so helpful or where
many differing types of specialist expertise have to be brought together and properly
integrated, the working drawing is the key tool for achieving this integration. It
underpins the negotiated processes that resolve actions and provides a common
reference for the organisational discipline necessary to proceed. It is both an accurate representation of the convergence of different disciplinary fields, and an abstraction that can be legally referenced.

Fred Baier has pointed out that to use computer software, for example computer aided
drawing (which encodes drawing processes in a kind of multiple-choice operation) is like entering the intellectual property of many people. Playful use of such software allows the user to deconstruct their own knowledge through interaction between their own experience and other’s encoding of ‘the same’ process. In this way it can be possible to find out what you didn’t know you knew, and to discover more content in something you already did (that is, if you learnt it another way first). This condition presumes some kind of knowledge that can be mapped onto the multiple choice code. When software is approached by someone without this prerequisite, or the person is presented with this encoded ‘multiple-choice version’ of a skilled and complex process that they are new to, it can appear to be insurmountable nonsense until another person who knows that specific version can act as a translator/mediator.

Learning from another person while you are in their presence involves emulation–
something the body is phenomenally good at. The problem with learning software is that
unlike, say, archery, the process of learning by emulation (or empathetic study as
described by Goethe) is severely reduced. Imagine learning archery from written
instructions. The business of being required to learn something via, as it were, ‘someone else’s haptic knowledge’ is a deeply frustrating and stressful experience. Here we have another paradox, one that little progress has been made in solving so far. The nearest thing we have to date, in terms of the office environment and team building, is that to overcome the irritations and tensions produced by the domination of software-mediated collaborative work, it is necessary to send the team off for a bit of shared white-water rafting or something equally intensively ‘haptic’ as a kind of counterbalance that addresses integration.

Given the previous discussion of experience being applied directly in a ‘craft’ process, there is a deep-seated problem with all means of digital processing of ‘representational’ information (that is, in the manner available to users at the consumer or software interface level). That problem is simply that if it’s digital, it is inescapablethat the multiple intellectual property content of software is interposed between you the individual and whatever it is you are trying to do. This is simply not so with analogue processing which is by its nature more capable of becoming a natural extension of the body and its processes. Of course we can learn to cope, but this coping tends to be about forced adaptation rather than intuitive augmentation. A way forward may involve the integration of these vectors, for example with virtual reality interface design linking directly to gesture and touch. More readily available to us are practices to ensure that the stifling effect of software mediated work is reduced; by ensuring we spend a proportion of time with the analogue paradigms; speaking, writing, reading, moving, observing,drawing, acting, creating; and their corollary; stillness.

Interestingly, and paradoxically, (in contrast to the observations above) a practised code-writer will develop a ‘feel’ for the code. Arguably this is because the skills associated with coding are much closer to the nature of the tool (the ordinateurto use the french) than the more awkward adaptations a user has to make to use consumer software which deploys designed representations that will come between them and the processes they wish to use.

In the developing mental ‘craft’ of the virtual design process that utilises digitised
information technology, and the struggle to begin to realise the potential of this, the body and its processes has to be given equal access. To date this has been largely overlooked in a rationalist culture which for some reason has presumed all stems from
the mind. A design process restricted to present software limitations has a tendency
toward stagnation as constant reiteration, or recycling of visual imagery becomes cut off from the ‘bodily intelligence’ of the craftsperson. Symbolic representation of something is not the same as understanding, and the design process must acknowledge this in order to be able to refresh and sustain itself. Research is beginning to show us that the haptic repository within the body is a rich and multi-dimensional source of insight, underpinning the insights possible with the mind, and which can unpack and illuminate our metaphorical world. Throughout history this engagement with the body has affected and effected realisation of the made object, and only recently has been denied a seat at the table.

We can think of ‘craft’ as where art and science meet; and it is experiential learning that locates this potential in our individual realities.

Myto Chair Development Cycle

2008-02-25T13:01:00.002-05:00

The Myto Chair (designed by Konstantin Grcic, produced by Plank) went from concept to production in just over a year. This is a remarkably short development cycle for a mass produced, injection molded piece of furniture. To make it all happen so quickly, the designer, manufacturer, and materials supplier collaborated extensively throughout the process. Although I have no proof to cite, I am certain that this aggressive development cycle would not have been possible without CAD technology: 3D modeling, Finite Element Analysis, Rapid Prototyping, and mold flow simulations (depicted below). And on a simpler level, sharing bytes between designer, engineer, and manufacturer is arguably faster and cheaper than sharing atoms.

Mold flow simulation simulates how molten material will flow in a mold cavity. This can tell a manufacturer how long it will take to mold a part, and if there will be any problems associated with the material cooling too fast. Finite element analysis provides insights into how an object will perform when various forces are applied. Since this is all simulated in virtual space, it saves product developers lots of time and money. The plastic supplier, BASF, played a key role in making sure the formula of plastic had the characteristics needed:

"the plastic had to have just the right ratio of elasticity, stiffness and strength in order to meet the requirements made of a comfortable, sturdy and yet shapely cantilever chair. The interplay between the plastic formulation and the design of the injection molding tool – a mere three injection points suffice – then gave the product its final shape and properties." - from BASF's press release on the chair

mass customisation

2008-02-22T08:44:00.002-05:00

http://www.genometri.com/gv_technology.htm

The bits on Mass customisation and generative design are pretty powerful technologies.

http://www.genometri.com/gv_products.htm

Here is a blog on mass-customisation

http://www.paulkrush.com/category/mass-customization/