Test by Carrie Lin

CRRE 4 (1) pp. 53–72 Intellect Limited 2013

Gyungju Chyon Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia John Stanislav Sadar Monash University, Australia

The dematerializing and rematerializing of design Keywords

Abstract

experiential design immateriality product design daylight air movement ecological sustainability window shade

The article begins by considering design in relation to the rising environmental awareness in the decades since its beginnings in the 1960s and 1970s. Increasing environmental awareness has accompanied what several thinkers have noted to be a paradigm shift in values, as they come to embrace process, variability and experience in lieu of progress and material goods. Given the beginnings of such a shift, and given the goal of shifting the world away from one based on material consumption, there is a need to shift values. The article suggests designers need to change their thinking away from offering total, complete solutions isolated from the natural world towards designing with the forces and energy flow of nature. At the same time, artefacts can play a role in shaping values, taking into account immateriality – forces and energy – and experience. Liquid Sky is presented as an example of how designing with the vagaries of the natural world might instil

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appreciation and change values. Liquid Sky is a window installation that amplifies the changing light and airflow conditions, using them to paint the domestic interior in an animate display of light. The artefact itself is an incomplete armature, which is completed by the interrelationship of material (textile) and immaterial (sunlight and air movement). Liquid Sky offers an example of how artefacts can instil the unpredictability and endless variations characteristic of the natural world, and how – through materializing the immaterial – artefacts can co-shape our values and thinking regarding an ecological future.

Introduction: Shifting values as part of our embrace of ecological thinking Over the last decades, since the beginning of space exploration in the 1960s and the oil crisis of the 1970s, environmental awareness has increased amongst the general population to the point where discussions of recycling, energy efficiency and even carbon trading have become the norm amongst government and corporate leaders. For instance, in 2008, 82 per cent of Australians reported being concerned with environmental issues (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2010: 1), compared with about 70 per cent in the early 1990s (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2006: 1). This awareness has already impacted decision-making, with a steady increase in the percentage of homes containing watersaving devices, such as dual flush toilets and reduced flow showerheads since the mid-1990s (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2006: 5). With greater capacity to measure the impact of our activities on our environment – from the ozone hole to ocean currents – it has become clear that the material world of our artefacts is impacting the immaterial fluxes – by which we mean energy and forces as affectors of experience – that structure our world. Such a shift requires a change of thinking and a change of values (Capra 1996: 3–13). What has happened with this increasing environmental awareness is nothing less than what physicist Fritjof Capra describes in his book The Web of Life (1996) as a paradigm shift. He describes this shift among physicists as a tendency to see what was hitherto understood as discrete occurrences as interconnected. As the mechanistic world-view is withering, and an ecological world-view begins to take its place, this cultural transformation is occurring not just among physicists but more widely among the general population. In the midst of this shift, there has been an interest by architects and industrial designers to grapple with issues of sustainability, to reappraise their roles in the making of the world and to look for alternatives to the status quo. Writing in the 1970s, the Austrian designer Victor Papanek already saw designers as complicit in creating a culture of organized obsolescence, with restyling and remodelling, on the one hand, and continual new gadgets, on the other, promoting a culture of disposability. While Papanek acknowledged the move towards disposability had some real benefits, particularly in the area of medical equipment, he found it having left behind the very real problem of mounting

The dematerializing and rematerializing of design

waste. Furthermore, he found it created the problem of how to establish lasting value in a throwaway culture (Papanek 1972: 73–85). In response, he called on designers to make a positive contribution to society and the environment by undertaking work in hitherto under-appreciated areas: the underdeveloped world, the elderly, healthcare, experimental research, the sustaining of human life and breakthrough concepts (Papanek 1972: 171–84). In design, one aspect of this has been the move towards envisioning not only products, but entire service systems in which the product is only one part (Manzini 1999). Another aspect has been to think about how, on the one hand, design can work for the disadvantaged, and how, on the other, design can become more clever in dealing with a situation of dwindling resources and the need to reduce the impact of products and the lifestyle they engender on the planet. The question of resources has driven explorations into, for example, the development of materials that are less deleterious to the environment and less detrimental to human health, and the recycling (and even up-cycling) of materials and products. In other words, there is a renewed interest in the notion that design can aid the health and well-being of both ourselves and our planet (Mau et al. 2004). The question, which this raises and which the article addresses is how designers can help address and facilitate the required shift in values. A theoretical consideration of the relationships between design and values is followed by a discussion of the project Liquid Sky as a demonstration of how artefacts can play a role in shaping values by designing with the forces and energy flow of nature to change our experiences.

Dematerialization of design In describing the need for a paradigm shift in our thinking regarding the impacts of our actions on future generations, the musician Brian Eno writes: If we want to contribute to some sort of tenable future, we have to reach a frame of mind where it seems unacceptable – gauche, uncivilised – to act in disregard of our descendants. (1985) Citing the abolition of slavery and child labour, and the adoption of universal suffrage as key moments of change, Eno finds the key to such change is the ability to imagine a situation different from the status quo: The dream becomes an invisible force which pulls us forward. By this process it starts to come true. The act of imagining something makes it real. (Eno 1985)

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He continues that the central role played by the imagination in envisioning alternative realities gifts artists and designers with a leadership role in changing values regarding our ideals for living: This imaginative process can be seeded and nurtured by artists and designers, for, since the beginning of the 20th century, artists have been moving away from an idea of art as something finished, perfect, definitive, and unchanging towards a view of artworks as processes or the seeds for processes – things that exist and change in time, things that are never finished. (Eno 1985) The graphic designer John Warwicker of the design collective, Tomato, echos Capra and Eno in discerning a shift in paradigm from a world-view based on the ideal of progress, to one based on an ideal of process (Warwicker 2012). Whereas progress is goal-oriented, optimizing and product-focused, process is focused on the way in which things unfold and hence is experiential. Traditionally, the underlying aim for progress is to create a demonstrably better product than the previous one, whether that may be more materially efficient, faster, smaller, bigger, less costly or operationally safer. The unstated aim of achieving these goals is to help us live more comfortable, more convenient, more productive and more efficient lives. But closer inspection reveals that that may not necessarily be the case. Arguably mass-produced items are never meant to last forever, as their production assumes the continuous consumption of ever-improving products as a measurement of progress. For example, where architect Lisa Heschong describes the carpets of the Middle Ages as both providing insulation and being admired as artworks (1979: 33), in the present day industrially produced carpets may be materially efficient, but they may also be made of volatile petrochemicals, that while being affordable, noise absorbers and augmenters of space, also release toxic chemicals into the air. As philosopher Peter-Paul Verbeek observes, although mobile phones offer convenience and ubiquitous connectivity, they have also affected our work– life balance and sense of privacy, and still do not capture the iconic value of the desktop corded telephone (2011: 1, 57–58). As the carpet and the mobile phone examples show, if the goal of the design of mass-produced items has been to create a more optimal world, clearly the results have been mixed at best, and have even done damage. While becoming perhaps more attainable, in engaging particular materials and compositions conducive to processes of mass production, the carpet’s qualities have narrowed to a smaller bandwidth, and have come with the cost, in some cases, of having deleterious effects on the health and well-being of both ourselves and our planet. In amplifying certain positive aspects for particular goals, others have been lost, and even negative aspects gained that had hitherto been absent.

The dematerializing and rematerializing of design

The following observation by Heschong can be taken to provide a new approach to this problem: The toddler who drags his security blanket everywhere may love it most as a reminder of the sense of warmth and well-being it gives him in his bed, not so different from the security and warmth of being held by his mother. Like the toddler, we tend to cherish the things that have provided us with warmness or coolness just when we needed or wanted it. (1979: 33) Here, the blanket provides the toddler with the experience of softness, warmness and the love of his mother. The end-product has thus become a carrier for cherished experiences that speak to our values. Reconceptualizing design to focus on the experience engendered by an artefact rather than its form is one trajectory for design to recover lost ground. Studies conducted by interactive technology designer Marc Hassenzahl have shown that when it comes to the issue of consumption, that often the real joy is in the experience of the purchase rather than the ownership of the goods themselves. Similarly, money spent on attending cultural events and embarking on trips produces more satisfaction than spending money on material goods. This has led a group of designers to focus their efforts not on mitigating problems with artefact so much as shaping positive experiences with them. Concerning the competition for material efficiency, additional features or enhanced usability, Hassenzahl explains that ‘avoiding the bad experience due to a lack of instrumentality does not necessarily equate with providing a positive experience’. Instead, he suggests that, ‘… by focusing on creating positive, personally meaningful, and thus, inherently valuable experience, we have the opportunity to make people happier’, and that such positive experiences with the built environment ‘… hold more power to increase well-being than any material possession’ (Hassenzahl 2010: 27, 35–38). In shifting from a paradigm based on progress to one based on process (Warwicker 2012), Hassenzahl’s work suggests that our values may also be at the same time shifting from being materially based – improved goods – to being experiential. The philosopher Verbeek suggests that in engaging human experience through what it does and how it is used, rather than through appearance or the mechanics of functionality alone, the artefact can forge more durable relationships with its owners that extend beyond visual appeal into wider patterns of use (Verbeek 2005). It is through use and experience that artefacts have their greatest impact. Citing examples such as medical imaging and speed bumps, Verbeek argues that artefacts affect our behaviours and decisions, and as our artefacts impact our lives, they not only embody our values but co-shape them (Verbeek 2011: 41–65, 212). If changing our world requires us to change our values (Eno 1985), then changing the way we conceptualize and design our artefacts can help us shift our values to align with the new world we seek. In this sense, for Hassenzahl, the artefact begins to dematerialize into a thickened

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atmosphere around it: of relationships, emotions and experiences. The artefact thus becomes a carrier for this atmosphere of immaterial qualities that speak to the values we desire. An artefact’s formal, material and operational attributes in tandem with its capacity for allusion and metaphor have the potential for positive contributions to society, and the world of another dimension. Artefacts can affect our minds and bodies, such as by enabling us to think of the forest and remember its smell, or to recall the feeling of the beach and the sound of the sea (Figure 1). Whether the movement of the air, the smell of pine needles, the sound of branches moving in the wind or the warmth of sunlight as it breaks through the mist, the immateriality of the environment appeals to the full range of senses of human possess. As architect Juhani Pallasmaa states, our experience of our world is not only visual, but rather is felt with the whole of the body (2005). In placing an emphasis on immaterial qualities, the design of artefacts involves more than visual perception, as it requires the engagement of the range of sensations, and that the designer be more fully aware of the interaction between the artefact and its environment. Heschong provides an example of how an artefact might enable changes in thinking by increasing our awareness to environmental attributes in her relaying of Norma Skurka and John Naar’s description of the Zomeworks Skylid, a system of automatic louvres that dynamically interact with sunlight and temperature: We look into the greenhouse and watch the Skylid closing automatically, one by one, and in no particular order, and we are ware of hot air rising, cold air settling … [They] remind us that the earth is turning and the day is ending. (Heschong 1979: 38) Heschong’s remarks illuminate how artefacts can increase our awareness of our surroundings, and increase our awareness of phenomena that might otherwise escape our notice. With such awareness, we may come to appreciate such phenomena, and with that appreciation may come a change of thinking and values. At its best, directing this power of design can enable us to appreciate the world in new ways, to notice things that may have always existed, yet escaped our attention. Before we can ever hope to take meaningful action, we collectively have to become more appreciative of the world surrounding us. Through their aforementioned capacities as enabled by their formal, material and operational attributes, our artefacts can do much to make us more aware of the qualities of our world, fostering awareness and appreciation of the range of its phenomena by focusing more on immaterial experiences. To help point us towards a more ecological future and shift our focus to concerns of energy and process, design can emphasize values embedded in crafts. If crafting an artefact extracts immaterial qualities out of materials, designers might infuse immateriality into artefacts. The artefact could thereby provide a means of manifesting the forces and energies that drive our world.

The dematerializing and rematerializing of design

Figure 1: Little Wonder. (2009). Liquid Sky was designed in response to the light quality of the seaside. Photography: Gary Annett. ÂŠ Little Wonder.

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Experiencing immateriality: How might artefacts instill new values? Writing in the 1960s, former Professor of Furniture at the Royal College of Art, David Pye saw introducing variation into artefacts as a way of bringing them into greater reciprocity with the vagaries of the natural world. Eschewing the word ‘craft’, he theorized ‘workmanship’ in terms of a gradient between the ‘workmanship of risk’ – handcraft with a minimal use of guides and jigs that aid repetition, and which depends largely on the hand of the maker – and the ‘workmanship of certainty’ – machine work with the high degree of precision and control characteristics of industrial manufacturing, and which depends largely on the design of the object and manufacturing process. An appreciation of the ‘workmanship of risk’ lies in its embodiment of time and care, but also its variation and uniqueness. Thus, the wear on the artefact over time may add to its appeal. An appreciation of the ‘workmanship of certainty’, on the other hand, as with mass-produced goods, lies it its embodiment of technological control, precision and standardization. Thus, owing to technological change, a newer product will likely be a better product, and signs of wear likely diminish a product’s value (Pye 1968). As Pye wrote, through the workmanship of certainty, our ability to precisely and predictably manipulate material has become so strong, that we can now value the variability of the natural world, and with that the ‘workmanship of risk’, from inside the buffered, certain world of our artefacts. The increased control and serialization enabled by our ‘workmanship of certainty’ has come at the cost of losing the variation of both the ‘workmanship of risk’ and the natural world. This left Pye with the difficult question of how to maintain the advantages enabled by ‘certainty’ while re-injecting a degree of variation so as to bring to the world of artefacts some of the complexities of the natural world. Working with wood was a possibility noted by Pye, in which case the material would offer variation (1968). Working with mass customization to produce variations in forms was mooted over the last ten years, in which case the form would offer variation as with Greg Lynn’s Tea and Coffee Towers for Alessi in 2003 (Martin 2009). As an alternate to both, working with the object’s manifestation of natural phenomena may offer variation while drawing attention to the variable forces and energy flows of the natural world. If our world is shifting from a paradigm of progress to one of process, as argued above, then it is also shifting from one based on materials to one based on immaterials – flows of energy, such as wind, heat and light – and the experiences of them. Although it has an unescapable material presence, our world is equally characterized by the immaterial qualities that shape it. Changes of energy, temperature and pressure drive our planetary processes, make our well-being possible and fundamentally colour our experiences, yet are largely unnoticeable. Architect Sean Lally uses the term ‘material energies’ to describe these phenomena that shape our world (2009). Architect Jonathan Hill discusses environmental forces and flows, and sensory perceptions, such as light, heat, scent, air

The dematerializing and rematerializing of design

movement, humidity and sound by invoking the term ‘immateriality’ (2006). As ‘immateriality’ lacks substance and visual presence, it can itself easily be ignored or taken for granted. Yet, as a driver of processes (such as ocean currents, winds and climate), its changing impacts are the subject of increasing awareness. In response, designed artefacts must be concerned not only with material and form, but also with immaterial attributes and forces, and the experience of them. This is argued by Heschong, when she calls for the immaterial qualities of space – in particular its thermal qualities – to be taken to heart by designers of the built environment. Although the control of such qualities underpins our need for buildings to begin with, she argues they have been largely ignored by architects. In her view, architects ought to use the immaterial aspects of the built environment as something with which to design (Heschong 1979). Architect Kiel Moe notes the separation in discourse and treatment of matter and energy amongst those involved in the design of buildings, to the point where issues of energy have been marginalized to the purview of specialist consultants. Yet, as he writes, ‘Matter is captured energy’ (Moe 2012: 314). Matter can also be a conduit of energy, transporting it into the building. By taking part in the flow of energy in the world, Moe’s hope is that the artefact – in his case the building envelope – can assume a greater sense of purpose as a performative, ethical agent in the promotion of human health and well-being, and turn away from being ‘… merely a passive container of space …’ (2012: 325). Engaging immateriality requires that designers shed some degree of ‘certainty’ and embrace the possibilities of ‘risk’. Hill writes, ‘… immaterial architecture revels in qualities – the subjective, unpredictable, porous, and ephemeral – that are contrary to the solid, objective, and respectable practice expected of a professional’ (2006: 75). A shift towards engaging the immaterial qualities that Heschong and Hill suggest involves a shift in sensitivity on the part of the designer, and a corresponding shift in values as they come to appreciate the non-visual qualities of texture, smell and sound (Hill 2006). The qualities Hill sees in the immaterial are the aspects of variation that Pye saw in the ‘workmanship of risk’ of those engaged in handcrafts. As Hill suggests, for the designer to work with immateriality requires a shift in thinking and approach that embraces the notion that the work is necessarily completed by external agencies, such as wind, rain, sun and the experiences of others. Echoing Eno’s shift towards the unfinished and ever-changing, and Heschong’s observation of the role of the sensorial experiences engendered by artefacts, Hill is advocating that the designer appropriate the process by which a craftsman engages in continual dialogue with materials in the shaping of ideas (Sennett 2008: 161). Verbeek has pointed out that craft is not limited to material things, but that we can think in terms of crafting a quality of life, a sense of well-being and ecological relations (2011). By shaping and amplifying the experience of them, the immaterial effectively becomes quasi-materials for design. In consideration of the paradigm shift noted by Capra, we therefore propose that the

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ethos and engagement of craft can enable a foregrounding of precisely these values and thinking necessary to enable our society to more fully embrace the immaterial: energy, force, process and experience.

Materializing the immaterial In April 2008 our practice Little Wonder was one of five design firms invited to participate in an exhibition entitled ‘Out of the Square: Beach Architecture on the Mornington Peninsula’. The exhibition was a photographic retrospective on private residences – most of them holiday homes – built on the Mornington Peninsula, south of Melbourne, Australia, from 1919 through to the present. As a part of the exhibition, held between November 2008 and February 2009, five architects and designers were each asked to design a ‘Platform for living’, to be installed within a 2.5 m cubic space of the gallery. The Platforms provided an opportunity to inject an otherwise retrospective exhibition with speculative and experimental concepts for the holiday home of the future (James 2008). We used this invitation to create a material demonstration that would affect human values as discussed above, and which resulted in the installation Liquid Sky. Liquid Sky is a textile installation that was designed in response to the particular qualities of air, water and light characteristic of waterfront living of the Mornington Peninsula, to make these qualities portable, and to bring them indoors to enliven domestic life. Located approximately 50 km south of Melbourne, Australia, the Mornington Peninsula has been the leading tourist destination in southeastern Australia since the 1950s. The Peninsula’s particular qualities of air, light and water attract visitors to the parks, beaches and water activities, and to the coupling of views, with the quiet and clean environment. Mornington offers the ineffable qualities of life in combination with the urbane activities of the city within a short distance of Melbourne: the lure of escape and the promise of proximity. However, this convenient escape has become far less attainable due to rising land prices. The area is thus the home to retirees, the host of corporate retreats and the destination for caravans. At the same time, suburban sprawl has all but consumed the Peninsula, making it impossible to discern where city ends and escape begins. As the area and the means of travelling there becomes more costly, the Peninsula is subject to pressures from both holiday options elsewhere, and the time demands of people working longer hours. A study of the Peninsula, therefore, reveals a schism between the desires and realities of rising costs, urban sprawl and the economic pressures of contemporary life. With the changing nature and affordability of holiday homes and the Mornington Peninsula, it became clear that designing a speculative holiday home of the future was not a useful proposition. Yet, the desires for a change of rhythm of life, for a change of setting, and to be reacquainted with

The dematerializing and rematerializing of design

the natural world are still real desires, and drive the need for the holiday. So, rather than designing a holiday home, another option might be to offer the allure of escape in the home. Could designers offer amenities for the home that aid in relieving the mental and physical stresses of daily life? Doing so, would offer escape from the everyday and enliven the everyday routine with something exceptional (Figure 2). It would offer variety, while at the same time offer a way of reacquainting with natural phenomena. In place of the holiday home, we proposed to make an artefact that would bring aspects of the bay-side Mornington experience out of the Peninsula to Melbourne, where the vast majority of Mornington visitors reside. This artefact would have a degree of universality of experience about it, so as to make the experience portable and transport it to other parts of the world. On the other hand, the proposed artefact would heighten the particular qualities of the Mornington experience to both its own residents and holiday makers alike, taking as its starting point the Peninsula’s natural amenities of water, sea air and sunlight. At the same time, the exhibition would engage the general public, and to that end, our practice proposed that the exhibition would be a full-scale spatial intervention – rather than a representation – which would comprise an experiential space of direct encounter with a physical artefact. Mornington’s three main attractions are its natural attributes of sun, air and water, as previously noted. These attributes converge in the particular quality of seaside light, created by the dance of sunlight on the surface of the water as modulated by the ever-present movement of the air. To be able to bring even this one aspect of the Mornington Peninsula into the home, whether of local residents, holiday homeowners or of Melbournians, would be to enliven domestic life, injecting something of the exceptional experience into the everyday routine. The project would then be guided by the following proposition: light can be captured, modulated and produced within a textile surface to provide the changing quality of light as might be reflected from the surface of the sea. The ethos of the project became one of reduction, aiming to create maximum effects with minimum means. Rather than trying to store and reproduce light, whether with photovoltaics or phosphorescents, the design ought to work with light when it was present. The design of the object had to not only accept the unpredictable and ever changing character of natural light, but ought to amplify those very characteristics. As the nature of the design shifted from, in effect, designing phenomena to designing with phenomena, experiment after experiment with filtering light brought the design closer to being a support and amplifier of the vagaries of seaside light (Figure 3). The organization and aesthetic of the installation would come about directly from the experience of phenomena, rather than the experience being designed by the installation. It does not replicate natural phenomena, but harvests and amplifies an experience of phenomena, foregrounding them while the artefact itself recedes into the background.

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Figure 2: Little Wonder. (2009). Liquid Sky transports the seaside to the tight, urban loft dwelling, painting the home with animate light. Photomontage: Little Wonder. ÂŠ Little Wonder.

The dematerializing and rematerializing of design

Figure 3: Little Wonder. (2009). Time-lapse photography illustrates how changing environmental conditions animate the quality of light captured by the Liquid Sky. Photography: Gary Annett. ÂŠ Little Wonder.

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The result was Liquid Sky, which is constructed of layered textiles so as to control light and view while acting as a camera obscura, filtering and collecting light in its surfaces. The dance of light captured by the textiles creates an allusion to water, mist or stars, thereby creating something exceptional from everyday phenomena (Figure 4). The lightness of textiles enables them to move in the breeze, while they trap evanescent qualities of light in their surfaces (Figure 5). As with the reflected light created by the gentle movement of the sea, which shifts from the dazzle of glittering reflections to the subtlety of calm fog, the light captured by the screen similarly dynamically shifts with air movement and changing light. Natural phenomena such as water, breeze and sunlight surround us, whether in urban, suburban or rural environments. Yet, people flock to beaches and waterfront areas precisely for sunlight and fresh air. Meanwhile, architecture in the city has successfully protected interior spaces and our bodies from the harsh aspects of the natural world. Mechanically controlled interiors offer us a certain level of convenience in their provision of optimal environments for our physical comfort and well-being. But, in so doing, they buffer the body from the very world they seek to set it at ease with. Sunshades, as the name suggests, block incident sunlight. But they also block the intrusive views from neighbours, or even the views of particularly harsh environments. Thus, typically the sunshadeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s surface is used as an indoor decoration, and its aesthetic qualities largely lie in its materials, weaving patterns and colours, and the degree to which these fit into and decorate a particular interior environment. Indeed, devices like curtains and blinds serve to remove us from the endless variation of the natural world. Even in daylit and naturally ventilated buildings, we take the natural world for granted until we are finally sufficiently stifled by urban life and head for the beach. At this moment in our history, we can no longer afford to ignore the beauty of subtle changes in air and light over time, from dawn to dusk, within the sanctuary of our homes.1 Where conventional window treatments and sunshades are designed to solve particular problems of heat and light, and are thus goal oriented, Liquid Sky is designed to evoke a multi-sensorial experience, manifesting the natural processes of shifting light and air flow over time (Figure 6). In doing so, it transports the seaside to the tight, urban loft dwelling, and paints the home with animate light. Liquid Sky simultaneously performs and transcends performance, as its value extends beyond its form and materials to include the particular sensory experience it engenders. Not entirely an object, but also an affector of atmosphere, the product thus expands to occupy the space between the user and the product. Its dynamic and expansive performance demonstrates a possible trajectory for design vis-Ă -vis issues of environmental performance. This trajectory seeks to foster a sense of awareness of and appreciation for natural phenomena, while at the same time enabling a more durable relationship between user and artefact. Such relationships can provide for artefacts that are sensorially engaging as well as demonstrative and instigative of the shift in values that must accompany an embrace of ecological thinking. They can thus offer a meeting ground for commercial enterprise and social concerns.

For imagery and video, please refer to http:// www.littlewonderdesign.com/liquidsky. html.

The dematerializing and rematerializing of design

Figure 4: Little Wonder. (2009). Liquid Sky installed at the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery. Photography: Gary Annett. ÂŠ Little Wonder.

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Figure 5: Little Wonder. (2009). Detail of the patterning of light enabled by the multi-layered window treatment, Liquid Sky. Photography: Gary Annett. ÂŠ Little Wonder.

The dematerializing and rematerializing of design

Figure 6: Little Wonder. (2009). Air movement, the position of the sun, and cloud conditions cause shifts in the way the curtain displays daylight â&#x20AC;&#x201C; from hard focus to soft blur. Photography: Gary Annett. ÂŠ Little Wonder.

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Conclusion In the case of Liquid Sky, while the result is certainly an artefact, what is enjoyable about it is not the textile of the artefact itself, but the experiences offered by the particular way in which it captures and demonstrates the natural world’s thermodynamic energy and visible light. The reception of the work by others has borne this out. At the resulting gallery exhibition, one visitor (referred to as J. D. S.) commented on how she understood the work to be taking an otherwise unnoticeable everyday moment and amplifying it into something special (personal communication). Five manufacturers, from four different countries, immediately remarked on how the quality of light through the work recalled water reflected off the surface of water or seen through mist. At the same time, they remarked that Liquid Sky was not so much an object or product (window covering), but an armature for a particular experience of daylight (personal communication). As a result of this engagement with the immaterial world of experience and energy, the focus of design then shifts from considering the object as an object to considering the object as an enabler of experience. Hence, just as in Eno’s ambient music, musical form becomes a carrier for ideas about sonic texture, for the designer, in this scenario, material becomes a carrier of ideas about immateriality and serves to bring the immaterial qualities to life so that they can be experienced. This approach characterizes, for example, the work of architectural glass designer James Carpenter, for whom glass becomes a carrier for light, as demonstrated in Periscope Window and Dichroic Light Field (Marpillero et al. 2006). One issue arising from this approach is that the material form is likely never completely finished. Rather, it relies on the continuous flow of dynamic energy, whether from the sun, the wind, or the movement of the earth. Whereas for designers, material and form are carefully planned and precisely made according to a prescribed plan, adopting the guise of craft and the opportunities afforded by immaterial phenomena means that, as Hill points out, designers would necessarily cede some control to other agencies, allowing artefacts to be co-shaped by their environments (Hill 2006: 75). In is precisely this aspect of incompleteness, unpredictability and ephemerality that brings the resulting artefacts to life. With the interaction between material and immaterial, an ephemeral, mundane moment that would otherwise be taken for granted becomes an exceptional moment that may become the seed for shaping values and thinking regarding ecological living.

References Australian Bureau of Statistics (2006), What Do Australians Think About Protecting the Environment?, Canberra: Australian State of the Environment Committee, Department of the Environment and Heritage. —— (2010), Environmental Awareness and Action, Canberra: Australian Bureau of Statistics.

The dematerializing and rematerializing of design

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Gyungju Chyon | John Stanislav Sadar

Suggested citation Chyon, G. and Sadar, J. S. (2013), ‘The dematerializing and rematerializing of design’, Craft Research 4: 1, pp. 53–72, doi: 10.1386/crre.4.1.53_1

Contributor details Gyungju Chyon is a lecturer in industrial design at RMIT and a partner of Little Wonder design studio. Her research and practice is concerned with how well-being and energy concerns in tandem with explorations of natural phenomena and new materials and manufacturing processes can lead to new relationships between artefacts, environments and users. She earned a B.A. in industrial design from Hong-Ik University in Seoul, and an M.A. in furniture and interior architecture from Taideteollinen Korkeakoulu (Aalto University) in Helsinki. Contact: Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, 102/15 Pickles St. Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia. E-mail: gyungju.chyon@rmit.edu.au John Stanislav Sadar earned a B.Arch. from McGill University in Montreal, a M.Arch. from the Teknillinen Korkeakoulu (Aalto University) in Helsinki and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. Having practiced in architectural design studios in Finland, Slovenia, Canada and the United States, he is currently a lecturer in architectural design and technology at Monash University in Melbourne, and is a partner in the design studio Little Wonder. He is interested in the way our technological artefacts mediate the relationship between our bodies and the environment. Contact: Monash University, 102/15 Pickles St. Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia. E-mail: john.sadar@monash.edu Gyungju Chyon and John Stanislav Sadar have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the authors of this work in the format that was submitted to Intellect Ltd.

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