UnTill Process Book

UnTill process book  jacqui bush

Table of contents 3 Project Brief 4 Research 10 Analysis 12 Process 18 Finished Work 2

Initial Brief

Final Brief

The goal of my project is to foster a connection between city-dwellers and traditional knowledge about food production and waste, through a reimagined public waste collection system. The system incorporates public compost collection and food regrowth stations, along with educational materials encouraging community maintenance and engagement with the system.

Speculating advances in biotechnology and food science, UnTill explores a circular economy taken to its extreme. This project imagines a future world in which food is never wasted, with scraps instead regrown in a regenerative machine. Access to fresh produce would become contingent on access to scraps, making food waste a new form of currency.

The machine occupies a space between biology and technology, utopia and dystopia, asking us to question our relationship to technology and natural resources when faced with something as fundamental as nourishing our bodies. Questioning systems of food, waste, and economics, UnTill is evidence of an alternate world made tangible within our existence, prompting viewers to ponder the larger implications of such a reality.

The first iteration of this project brief stemmed from an initial interest in urban agriculture as a design solution for a broken food system. As the project progressed, this evolved into an examination of waste systems and the potential for system closure inherent in food/vegetation. With more research, the final brief became a speculative piece on a potential alternative, challenging the very foundation of our world order.

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Research With a projected 9 billion people inhabiting Earth by 2050, it is obvious that our current methods of producing, consuming, and disposing of food is unsustainable. Inspired by this daunting figure, I first looked to urban agriculture as a potential solution.

In searching for solutions, I became enamored with the idea of incorporating traditional, preindustrial knowledge into systems of food growth and waste management, reincorporating these traditions into the mainstream.

I looked at companion planting and the regenerative qualities of vegetation, uncovering the cyclical essence of nature that would inform the imagined technology of UnTill.

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Initial Nine-Up The initial food regrowth kit that I envisioned was particularly inspired by Jihyun Ryou’s project, Save Food from the Fridge. Waste, being the end of the food production chain, is the main breaking point for the overall system, because unlike fabricated items intended for disposability, food is naturally part of a closed cycle. In Save Food from the Fridge, Ryou incorporates traditional knowledge about natural food storage into a beautifully designed set of shelves. Motivated by this aesthetic, one of minimal forms and natural materials, my initial Nine Up evokes a sense of quiet, simplicity, and craft, which are concepts often linked to tradition.

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Taking into account the various growing needs of different kitchen scraps, I began searching for household sets, objects designed to live in tandem with one another. In collecting source material for this inspiration board, I encountered Tea Machines,

by Studio PSK. The Tea Machines are a set of devices contrived to help the user waste time, by convoluting the process of making a simple cup of 8

tea. Commenting on how we are slaves to time, the Tea Machines are evidence of an, albeit somewhat absurd, alternative world view. I came across this project just after reading Dunne and Raby’s Speculative Everything, in which they propose speculative design as a powerful tool for changing not only the built world around us, but the underlying attitudes that shape our reality.

Fresh Nine Up Inspired anew by these ideas, the scope of my project broadened beyond an industrial or product design challenge into the realm of speculation.

Asking what if?, I delved into an aesthetic of the non object, conveying both unrealness and realness at once. The new direction of the project required an aesthetic that would allow the audience to invest in the concept without getting too hung up on the functionality of the object, This aesthetic resists excessive ornamentation, preferring instead the paired down language of a schematic.

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Analysis After much thought and research, the final output of my project was determined to be a regenerative machine that speculates an alternative world where food is a closed technological system.

The machine, initially based on the transaction of a vending machine, was refined into a set of domestic appliances that absorb the DNA of the vegetable scraps, reconstruct the fresh vegetable, then breakdown the remaining organic matter into biofuel to power the machine. This closed system simultaneously makes the food production chain immediate and abstracts the cycle through complex technological processes. This superimposing of technology over the fundamental rules of nature speaks to the human tendency to over-complicate our relationship with the natural world in the name of science.

This system makes access to fresh vegetables contingent on availability of vegetable DNA, making kitchen scraps a new form of currency. By introducing this alternative economy, UnTill also acts as a commentary on the capitalist structures that tie us to an inherently unsustainable, arbitrary value system. By creating these machines, I hope to denaturalize the systems that shape our world and prompt viewers to consider alternative possibilities.

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Process The final output of the project was decided to be laser-cut plexiglass, meaning that the cuts had to be tested and accurate before the final assembly. In order to refine the machines, I went through many iterations of prototypes, starting with the vending machine with refinements along the way. The prototyping process involved sketches, cardboard mock-ups, foam-core mock-ups, and 3D modeling to test the dimensions with precision before exporting the lasercutting file.

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Finished Work The finished product of UnTill is a set of three regenerative machines. Each machine is intended for a different type of vegetable: root, bulb, and leaf. The opening mechanism for each machine is referential to the type of vegetable it contains; Root features two hinging doors, which mimic the architecture of root cellars. Bulb features a vertically sliding panel, acknowledging the chopping that is enacted upon this type of vegetable. Leaf has a tip-out door that references the growth of the plant, the leaves lilting outward as new growth appears in the centre.

Function is demonstrated through the layered green elements of each machine. In Bulb, the layered green indicates the scanning and harvesting of the inputted scrap’s DNA. Cross-sections of the reconstituting lettuce appear in the body of Leaf.

The leftover organic matter of the initial input is then broken down for biofuel to power the machines, as illustrated by the striated forms in Root.

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The machines are displayed alongside a descriptive text, with graphics demonstrating the factors that created this world. Laid out like a three-dimensional schematic, the display area poses the What Ifs that will prompt an analysis of the systems we take for granted. Lit from behind by LED light strips, the machines take on an unearthly glow, while the LEDs act as an indicator of function.

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