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Finishing the Morphology course at my university is a BIG deal (I study industrial design). We finish with a 5 month proyect in which we design a concept. We call it the "space ship" project. We start by designing lines, then surfaces, then shapes. Then we convine our shape with our partner's (we team up into groups of two) following both shape's inner logic. We are designers so everything must have an explenation. Later we assign a function to the resulting shape. This is the thoughest part since all shapes at first look like space ships. Ours, after a long time thinking and designing, was going to be a snowblower.
The exercise was about using our knowledge of the culture we live in to connect a designed shape with a function. It was basically the opposite of what we designers often do. So it is not an exercise as "form follows function" but the other way around, just because it was a Morphology course. Not the Design workshops we are use to. In Morphology we study shapes, lines and surfaces so that in the Design courses we can come up with just the right shapes for the solutions we suggest for each project. This is why this design will never fulfill the needs of a machine that moves snow as good as a real snowblower would.
Our justification for a snowblower started with the big hole our shape has. Something important needed to happen in that hole. We didn't want to put the human figure inside of it since it was too obvious and we wanted to do something more interesting. We went from water, to bacteria to finally snow. The remaining parts of our machine were determined by the needs of the blower: a mean to transport the machine (caterpillars), a mean to eject the collected snow, somewhere the human figure will stand and command.
The project not only consists on designing a concept machine, but also on building a model. Building models in Morphology is part of the learning since by getting your hands dirty you understand the shape, how it was made and how you can make it.
Building the model involved laser cutting wood, thermoforming plastics, shaping styrophoam, lots of glue, fiver glass and resin, lots of sanding and car paint.
After days of designing and a whole month of building here are the results, enjoy!
*the pictures include two adaptations, a small and a bigger one, of the thermoforming machine we saw on this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3fk7YjZ9uA
A HUGE thank you to Maca, my partner in this project and Jime, Dani and Aye! My loving friends who were also involved in the making.
___
http://www.facebook.com/combaideas // www.combaideas.com.ar
The exercise was about using our knowledge of the culture we live in to connect a designed shape with a function. It was basically the opposite of what we designers often do. So it is not an exercise as "form follows function" but the other way around, just because it was a Morphology course. Not the Design workshops we are use to. In Morphology we study shapes, lines and surfaces so that in the Design courses we can come up with just the right shapes for the solutions we suggest for each project. This is why this design will never fulfill the needs of a machine that moves snow as good as a real snowblower would.
Our justification for a snowblower started with the big hole our shape has. Something important needed to happen in that hole. We didn't want to put the human figure inside of it since it was too obvious and we wanted to do something more interesting. We went from water, to bacteria to finally snow. The remaining parts of our machine were determined by the needs of the blower: a mean to transport the machine (caterpillars), a mean to eject the collected snow, somewhere the human figure will stand and command.
The project not only consists on designing a concept machine, but also on building a model. Building models in Morphology is part of the learning since by getting your hands dirty you understand the shape, how it was made and how you can make it.
Building the model involved laser cutting wood, thermoforming plastics, shaping styrophoam, lots of glue, fiver glass and resin, lots of sanding and car paint.
After days of designing and a whole month of building here are the results, enjoy!
*the pictures include two adaptations, a small and a bigger one, of the thermoforming machine we saw on this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3fk7YjZ9uA
A HUGE thank you to Maca, my partner in this project and Jime, Dani and Aye! My loving friends who were also involved in the making.
___
http://www.facebook.com/combaideas // www.combaideas.com.ar
Yo queria hacer un fuselaje en 3d y despues virtualmente cortarlo para sacar una especie de cuadernas para armar una maqueta de ese.
Vos que programa usaste?
saludos.
Saludos y exitos!
Pia // www.combaideas.com.ar
gran trabajo, a primera vista crei que era alguien hablando de una herramienta que habia comprado
furthering the propulsiveness (2) of the idea, might also work as new kind of water craft
mmmm
just thinking outside of 'blower unit' idea, nice lines in the morph, very organic
hope the best for you in your idea
J Henry G
-Matthew
Congratulations in choosing a course to prepare you for the real world.
This was just an excersice that made us realize how much of our culture and society we know in terms of relating a shape or volume to a function or something that's being comunicated. We had to "read" what ever the shape was telling us (does it move fast, slow, in what direction, what size does it sujest, where does the human figure go, etc etc) and make it more obvious.
Morphology just prepares you to understand surfaces, lines and volumes so when you actually design a solution for something you have the tools to find the right shape and know how to build it, how to make it easier to produce, etc.
Seriously, though, I did want to address what seemed a slight misconception, seemingly equating “…what the market pushes designers and engineers to do.” with “Planned Obsolescence”.
What passes for “Planned Obsolescence” these days would be more accurately termed “Deliberate Obsolescence”; two concepts – one applicable, one not-so-much – with some surface similarities, but which are, in reality, galaxies apart…
“Planned Obsolescence” is a valid, even necessary, industrial concept which calls for products to be designed to last as long as the designer(s) honestly guesstimate it will take their industry to make the next major ADVANCE in the technology, then the first generation gets RECYCLED into the making of the THIRD generation products, and so, on.
This reduces both excess crap in landfills AND the massive, pointless wasting of fresh raw materials.
The behavior the lady in the video describes in the films from the 1950s is a PERVERTED version – “Deliberate Obsolescence”, a form of CONSUMER FRAUD (one of the most despicable) – masquerading as the real deal, which calls for products to be designed to last as long as the designer(s) honestly guesstimate it will take the user to get the package open and install the batteries, if any. After that, all bets are off.
This reduces excess cash in consumers’ wallets, but at least it guarantees both excess crap for the landfills AND the massive, pointless wasting of fresh raw materials.
What’s not to love (if you’re a rapacious, totally-out-of-control industrialist)?
This is what Ms. Leonard called, “Designed For The Dump”, and the whole vile, pernicious, sick and sickening idea SHOULD have been met with mass arrests when it first reared its ugly, little head. Heck, even we have some of the criminals confessing their crimes on film! Slam-dunk case!
Unfortunately, we’ve been conned into “going along” with this nonsense for so long, it may be impossible to change….
In the electronics repair biz, when stuff would come in “under warranty”, our standard joke was that the “Warranty Expiration Sensor” (factory-settable in increments of 31, 61 and 91 days) must’ve been defective and gone off a little early. Either that, or the “Warranty Expiration Sensor”‘s OWN “Warranty Expiration Sensor” had…! …but THAT sort of thinking leads to a whole alternate universe full of self-looping, paradoxoidal spirals……which may make for an interesting (read: insanely-dangerous) Instructable, some day! (…remember the TV show, “Sliders”?)
I think you did well to survive the brain fry on doing the reverse form to function exercise. (I remember being tested similarly on a design course where we were not told what we were to make but to produce a book of research on fruit, and then a week later told to "be God" and design and make a fruit.)
Your finished piece does look fantastic, even if the function over form people might not have been appeased this time, you'll do that in another exercise, very well I'm sure!
In looking at the smaller version, an idea occurred...Transform it into an R/C model. That way you can clear the sidewalk without having to go out into the cold (until the batteries run down).
If you look at their outlandish looks and pricing, clearly you can see that there are some people who are very willing to pay for form before function! ;) ;)