Creativity does not exist...
....and that is the most valuable lesson I have ever learned as a designer.
Ideas come when they are ripe; some days we insist on digging for them when there is nothing to find, and suddenly when you least expect it, the right concept clicks into obviousness. The ‘ZZZ’ side table, a 4 week project solved and executed in under 9hrs, explores the stability found in a seemingly unstable structure, appealing to the eye, with nothing more than a steel ribbon cut and folded into 3 Z shapes, and a thin triangular wooden top.
Sometimes we plan ahead, and sometimes we need to learn to adapt and find solutions in unexpected places; this versatility will always be important both for urgent problems resolution as well as for experimental discoveries or serendipities. These concrete textures were purposefully unplanned and left to solve at the moment. The instructed textures were: curves, metallic inserts, use of wood, nature-resembling, and free texture. In order to cover them all, only at-hand materials were chosen, including: duct tape mold for curves, crumpled PET bottle to resemble rocky texture, a closed metallic shape in order to create a voided block, wooden blocks for texture, and pencils for a perforated block. It is interesting and eye-opening to do this kind of excercises were we force ourselves to think outside the box by removing the option of selecting the usual, or the previosuly explored. We defy our sense of design by presenting ourselves with sudden challenges.
It is easy to go for the expected when working on a predefined concept. For the ‘Soldier’ side table, the concept given was ‘Mexico’; most people went for prehispanic motives, regional textiles and weavings, or flashy colorful designs, all of them certainly associated to the country’s folklore... but, what happens if you abstract a concept enough so you can merge it with new things? It is not anymore about how Mexico has been historically defined in its designs, but about updating its aesthetics while conserving a symblic meaning. The table set was inspired by the traditional mexican lottery, from which 7 cards were selected and represented as table personalities; the mermaid, curvacious and flowing, the drunk man tilted and seemingly unstable.... the soldier: strong and steady, ever-present yet discreet centinel. There’s thousands of ways to translate a concept, may we always take the road less taken.
Inspired in Frank Gehry’s ‘Easy Edges’, the ‘VETA’ chair explores the possibilities of disposable-material furniture design under the principles of movement and weight distribution. The chair, built from a 30m single-face corrugated cardboard roll, and held together only by 2 joint points at the back top and back botton, keeps a wobbly feel while being perfectly steady and lasting. Beyond the chair itself, the value of the proposal lies in the building method which allows the designer to create a very wide variety of furniture pieces under the same principle. This chair was once again, one of those sudden ideas, so obvious and simple, waiting to be found, after countless complicated and inefficient attempts. By stripping it down to basics, we find some of the best proposals.
Portraits are a very simple way to see how design and aesthetics can manipulate reality very importantly. It is me in all these pictures, all thought under a certain concept... yet, which one amongst them is actually me? Technically, all of them are, but they have also all been tampered with; they have been intentionally crafted into conveying a certain message. Vanity, rebellion, insecurity, comfort, depth, symbolism... it all depends on what we want an objective reality to say in a subjective way, wether subtle or obvious. We are given prime material and what we achieve with it... the facet we choose to show or extract from it, is what will define it’s impact on the final expectator or user. Same me.. different clothes, differect colors, diferent positions, different environments... all so similar yet so individual and distinguishable. Same goes for all things designed.
Once again... think outside the box. The instructions were salt and pepper shakers. I, in my relentless effort to do something different, came up with the idea to fabricate these shperic one-piece shakers with a single whole both to fill and shake. It is basically a cone within a sphere; we turn it upside down, pour the powder of choice so it fills the sphere, and then turn it upright so the powder settles around the cone. To use or empty them, we simply shake them cone-down; so simple yet so unusual. At the end of the day, the proportion of the hole is too big for a salt shaker; the amount of salt coming out would be too much, and if the hole were smaller, we would have a hard time filling them up. I decided to sell them as sugar shakers. We can call it a failed salt shaker, a great sugar shaker, an interesting experimentation... we can call it whatever, but never wasted effort.
The idea sparker for this design was as simple as the teacher saying we needed to do a composition adapted to the space, but generic enough so it wouldn’t matter if we lost our planned spot to someone else. Since generic sounded unacceptable, the logic that followed was: it can occupy a space not probable to be taken by someone else, and that solves the problem. The space chosen was relevant because it was easier to see from afar, and it differentiated a very simple piece from a bunch of other compositions by it’s mere location. The developed concept was good, but what was better, was understanding how the context influences the outcome as strongly as the central design piece itself.
The course where we had this assignment, has been by far one of my favorites; all of the excercises revolved around the observation of nature as a prime source for design and innovation; we studied the microscopic structure of various things around us, their aureal proportions, their geometric patterns... a perfect harmony invisible to all of us if we are not delicate enough to stop and be amazed by its perfection. The panel shown, was one of our last assignments, in which we had to choose one of the course topics (in this case the analysis of crack patterns) and find an architectural application for it, wether functional or visual; I chose to have a little bit of both. The idea was to have these prefabricated pieces, either ‘generic’ or cutsom-made, which were a kind of sandwich with an outer and inner finishing layer with cracks in it, attached to a central glass slab; these pieces would be installed into a proportional hole in the wall and the edges lost into the surrounding, by smoothing the joints out with the same finishing (e.g. plaster for the inside, concrete for the outside). The result were these kind of windows that would let light in and create beautiful shadow patterns, while keeping the privacy level almost intact. We chose it for a bedroom wall that faced a terrace were events could be held, contributing both as a visual interest as well as a functional item.
With this project I was made conscious of how much so traveling affects our sense of design and possibility. We had this project to do a 10x10x10 mt house right when we arrived from a 2-week program in Japan. I never noticed, until my japanese professor pointed it out, that my design was very different from anything I had done before, and it was a beautiful yet intricate laberinth, very easily comparable to the streets and alleyways in older Tokyo neighborhoods. Apart from that, the abstracted concept was very valuable to me, since for the first time ever, I decided to start making choices without thinking or solving the project first. The result was me finding out very attractive solutions to problems I would have solved rather generically and boringly if I’d solved them priorly (in this case the topographic stairs unifying levels in a very reduced space became the main visual attraction).
Great design can be inspired by anything, as long as it is well-fundamented and offers a strong concept. Last semester was a rather overachiever one, and I had no time for this project which was worth quite a bit of our grade; I knew at once that the core had to revolve around simplicity and efficiency. I chose the Issey Miyake japanese brand, and my concept was as follows: “To challenge morphological conventionalism though geometrical explorations resulting in the most complex minimalism, daring to break with everything; that is being: Issey Miyake� Basically: create an overwhelming and iconic design with as few and simple elements as possible. I designed a double height box with 3 massive diagonal walls, separating the display, storage room and sales lounge; bathrooms were non-gendered, and built into 3 huge columns, and 5 dressing rooms followed the same concept but in different finishings. I used a single luminaire disposed in seemingly random dispositions, and placed the clothes in mannequins that resembled people walking around the open space. White and black lacquer, chrome, concrete, white marble, and a lot of mirrors; the result is a flagship I would die to visit, and it was all inspired, by a moment of stress. 20.10
DOUBLE HEIGHT
MINIMAL STARTING POINT (CUBOID)
CLOSED; ELIMINATE EXTERNAL SENSATIONS; SAME ENVIRONMENT ALWAYS
FACADE
STORAGE
2.06
WC
0.50 1.02 0.75
FREE PLAN
1.61
DRESSERS
STORE EXHIBIT
20.00
26.40
SALES LOUNGE 1.20 0.75
MASSIVE GEOMETRIC WALLS
4.50
3.01 9.20
2.35 7.12
0.30
Restrictions make better results. Sometimes restrictions are obvious and given, and some other times we should look for them, but never should we attempt to design without them, because they are the parameters that make design valuable, and not just random aesthetically appealing compositions. For this project we were asked to propose a renovation for the campus canteen focusing on the obvious acoustic issues it has nowadays. Our challenge was met by reducing noise level by 7dB + non-cuantifiable measures while keeping said acoustic proposals invisible to the untrained eye.
First real-life project designed and executed beginning to end by me and my partner;design led by me. This is where we empirically confirmed what we all know: no school can teach you what experience does. It was a small project and therefore a good first opportunity to learn and mostly to understand what documents are actually necessary to make things happen. This was the first time I had ever had a furniture piece made by a carpenter and I prepared an entire 20 page document with every possible explanation, scheme, drawing, piece catalogue etc., and it turned out he was fine with receiving a handmade sketch with overall measures and important instructions. I’m not saying it’s not a good thing to document everything, but it definitely gives you something to consider when thinking about time investment and cost. In the end I’m proud of our first go at freelancing and everything we learnt from it.
This was our second executed project; design led by my partner. Second round, different obstacles and also a very rewarding outcome. Our foremost problem: space. The bathroom was extremely crowded happening in a 2x2m space; the broadening of the window and the demolition of shower cubicle walls was extremely important to change this cramped feeling; we also turned to whites to help the room look wider. We were satisfied and our client was too; mission accomplished.
Everything we do can become important later on, and thus eveything we do, no matter how irrelevant it might seem to be, should be done right. This table’s original prototype in cubic dimensions and in different finishings was built as an assignment for metals workshop a year before it became relevant. It was designed by my partner and later on caught her sister’s eye and she asked us to adapt the design for her bedroom lounge. We ended up losing money for this table instead of earning but we learnt a ton about coatings, glass, and marble; we also learnt how to whiten onyx slates. While we learnt marble from our supplier, they took insterest in our work and told us they had been wanting to launch a series of tables based on marble materials and that they would like to parter up with us so we designed and they sold, plus the owner asked us to design a different table for his own home. If all this opportunities rose from making a 4th semester assignment right... there’s no knowing how everything else we do might. So what do we do? We do things right.
Creativity does not exist...
....and that is the most valuable lesson I have ever learned as a designer.
LORE ROD.SER