SIMIN QIU 2015
SIMIN QIU Product Designer
I am interested in natural materials and the processes that define nature. I am working on these projects aim to challenge and broaden the established horizon of traditional materials and processes.
Royal College of Art, London, UK MA: Design Products 10.2013 - 07.2015
China Academy of Art, Shanghai, China BA: Industrial Design 09.2008 - 07.2012
02 — SIMIN QIU
T : +86 15869226588 E : qiusimin1989@hotmail.com W : www.behance.net/siminqiu
VALUE IN END GRAIN
END GRAIN
04 — END GRAIN
JUN. 2015
After the furniture production there will be lots of off-cut material wastes that can’t be used for large products. However, the tissues of pine, phloem and xylem, which are of tubular shape, can allow light to travel through, and the chemical composition of pine, enables pine to have a wider range of benefits such as light transmission and gorgeous grain patterns.
End Grain
Face Grain
Edge Grain
The end grain project uses the end grain patterns from off-cut waste wooden materials to create a range of new natural patterns by carefully cutting and gluing. This project is focused on the study of wooden materials. It explores the potential high values of pine and experiments with new and contemporary wood handcraft skills.
Every piece of off-cut pine materials in the bin has these useful values! These valuable benefits in pine are often neglected and not fully utilised, the wider application of which is what I am trying to explore. Using these natural processes, I want to create a new approach to material composition!
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Pine is the most commercially prevalent species of tree throughout the world, widely used in carpentry items such as furniture, window frames, panelling, floors and roofing. They have been defined in the cheap timber group because they are fast-growing softwoods in temperate and tropical regions.
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Stationary collection, timepieces and window shutter, altogether present the useful values of this material. They all use off-cut timber from wood workshop and recycled materials from used timber after exhibitions are built. Cut into small pieces of 5mm thickness, and then carefully glued together like mirror images,
they create new patterns. The light will travel easily through wood even when the thickness of materials is about 10mm. At the same time, the perfecting skills of craftsmanship transform the off-cut pine into high-end objects with elegant finishes.
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The Tissues of Pine, Phloem and Xylem, Which Are of Tubular Shape, Can Allow Light to Travel Through.
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This project pioneers a new process to create new materials and provides a new opportunity that allows more people to study and participate in the future. The positive environment also helps this project to acquire sustainable and self-development vitality.
JUN. 2015
ARTIFICIALNATURE
Deep grooves in this rock are the marks of other rock fragments, frozen into the moving ice of a glacier and gouging like chisel across rock surface.
Caught in a current, stones jostle and rub against one another to scour like a grinding wheel polishing and wearing hollows in their surfaces.
Wind-blown sand grains sandblastc as they go. The grains are catapulted against any rock surfaces they encounter. Some parts of this cobble are made of softer rock and have been worn down more quickly.
NATURE IS A TOOL.
The surface of our planet’s richly textured crust is made up of a diverse mixture of amazing abstract patterns. It is created by the interplay of geological forces such as heat and pressure in the earth’s interior, and also by external forces such as weathering and erosion caused by sun, wind, water and glacier ice. The interplay is a number of different processes that occur over space and time.
Focusing on The Natural Processes and Bridging The Gap Between Science and Art.
This project designs and creates a wave machine that simulates ocean movement to explore the broad and elegant principles underpinning the formation of ripples patterns. It aims to simulate the natural processes of making, and yet achieves a level of accuracy and perfection that are uncontrolled by nature.
Using water motion of natural forces is part of the wave machine. However, the process by artificial power sources can create a range of organic patterns in accordance with the laws of nature. This wave machine has four turbines driven by motors in a one square metre water tank.
Video: https://vimeo.com/131716775
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Numerical Control Wave Machnie 2.0
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Wave Making Process
3D Scan Sand
3D Forms of Patterns
Products
Machine creates waves when turbines are activated. After three to four minutes, sand ripples texture underneath will occur, and will become more obvious with the lapse of time. It can creates a range of different patterns by change the speed of turbine. Then using 3D scanner easly get the 3D forms of ripples patterns. They can apply onto different material and products.
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The Patterns Possess An Almost Indescribable and Mysterious Sense of Aesthetics.
By changing the frequency or position of motors, it accurately controls the patterns beyond normal phenomenon that most often occurs in nature. Ripples created by the wave machine are used in ceramic wall tiles and the washbasin. Use 3D forms of ripples patterns to make model for plaster mould. Current application is in the bathroom because it is a water condition and the naturally aesthetic appeal can create a comfortable bathroom space to reduce stress of users.
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Iron
30 — PASSION FOR FIRE
PASSION FOR FIRE
NOV. 2014
Stainless Steel
Brass
Copper
They say nothing lasts forever, but I want take this notion to the extreme. This extremely short moment has been marked in different metals reflect different patterns, iron, stainless steel, brass and copper.
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Design A Moment of Instantaneous Genesis. This project is to design a product that has an extremely short but fantastical existence. I use metal patination technique to create a gorgeous pattern on the accessories collection. It keep this extremely short moment lasts forever.
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SEE OR BE SEEN
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The pattern is like an x-ray film of human skull. Eyewear could become a product that allowed others to see your head. The purpose of this work is to redefine the original meaning of eyewear. See or be seen.
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CHAIR SIMIN
Industry
Specific Aims
The traditional industrial society is a one-way linear model of resources - products - pollution emissions, which undoubtedly changes the resources to be garbage continuously.
Like the life cycle of the creature, the chair experiences absorption, storage and return cycle over and over again. This project aims to introduce the cycle pattern of the creature to the products.
Resources
Resources
Products
Pollution
Manufacturing
USE Absorption
Landfill
Return
Storage
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Plants’ growth, withering and returning to the earth is a loop. Since the lives of things in the world go through a cyclic process, can the product life cycle be achieved?
Remanufacture
Natural Cycle
Recycle
JUN. 2012
RAW Materials
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From Cradle To Cradle. It shows that life is a repeating cycle process from a new perspective. The ecosystem of animals and plants on the earth all depend on this continuous cycle. Even the atoms we are made by are cycled. They are from the food we eat and the air we breathe. They are in our flesh blood and bone marrow.
The fallen leaves come from nature and return to nature, repeating it in endless cycles. Place the open chair container in the environment where there are trees and leaves; when the leaves fall to the container, it becomes a chair. When the user sits on the chair, the small fragments fall to the ground and decay to continue its life cycle.
The leave of the plane tree fall to the ground and shows the shrink state due to water evaporation, demonstrating the beauty of strength which is rarely notice. Pull the branches of the fallen leaves out, adjust its angle and then become the final form of the chair through the process.
Cell dissolution of the organic substance is a very important part in the life cycle. On the surface of the chair are covered with irregular hexagons, abstractly showing the cell structure of the plant. Take it as the semantic symbol of the life cycle. On the other hand, such hollow structure ensures the ventilation and drying of leaves and does not block the leaves in and out.
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CELL STRUCTURE
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The change of season is a never-ending cycle. As spring goes and autumn comes, the chair is changing every moment. The user can fully experience the idea of product life cycle through the direct contact with the fallen leaves and show a stronger desire to pursue nature.
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52 — SWIRL
MAY. 2011
Swirl Where There Is Life, There are Water and Swirl. World due to scroll all the continuity of life. Also water, it maintain the natural vitality because the swirl motion. Give a chance to release of inhibition of water in the pipeline, and to give life.
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According to my understanding, water is gentle and swirly. These two elements have been used in my work. The rotary outlet of the faucet makes water swirl motion.
Turbine Group
Ratchet Wheel 1
Water Inlet
Water Inlet
Ratchet Wheel 2 Tube Spring
Water Outlet
Above Turbine
Housing
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Cover
Turbine Group Water Above Turbine
Below Turbine
Below Turbine
Ratchet Wheel 3
Water
Spring
Back Cover
In this water faucet, the water is put through a complicated mechanism in the head of the device to set it into rotary motion so that a type of sprinkling swirl is created. Two different exits on the housing contribute to the turbines above and below rotating reversely. Touching the switch, the active ratchet wheel forces the passive ratchet wheel out of bayonet. And the switch will restore the initial state immediately.
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Valuable Raw Material This unusual-looking water jet emphasizes the beauty of flowing water and provides for a pleasant surprise when it is first turned on. In addition, it visualizes the preciousness of water as a resource and makes users more aware of how they use this valuable raw material.
Enjoyable Spiritual joy brings great improvement of customers’ satisfaction to the product.
Energy Saving Temperature has been set in advance, avoiding the electric heater switches on in vain when cold water needs only.
Water Saving Compare with the traditional faucet, the one-touch faucet saves 15% of water in the same pressure during a 60sec period.
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60s
Convenient Water comes out faster by 0.4 second from one-touch faucet, which is more convenient as well as environmental friendly.
0.3s
0.7s
Comfortable Swirling water is gentler by reducing the impact water force per unit area.
There Are Only Three Major Rain Forests Left.
MAR. 2010
THE AMAZON
LIVE LIFE
THE CONGO
These forests sustain 2/3 of landbased species.
But every 2 seconds rain forest the size of a football field is destroyed.
For food, water, tools, medicine, shelter, culture, and for their soul.
1/5 of greenhouse gas emissions comes from deforestation.
THE PARADISE FORESTS OF THE ASIA PACIFIC
The orangutan shares 97% of our DNA.
Our rain forests are being cut down for furniture, flooring, and paper.
The forest is theirs and ours to protect.
Sex: Weight:
Male 65kg
Height: Lower Extremity Length: Shoulder Height: Elbow Height: Knee Height: Shank Add Leg Height: Buttock-Knee Length: Shoulder Breadth: Hip Breadth: Elbow Width:
1750 1020 605 280 588 435 595 410 365 450
940
Ergonomics
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435
588
280
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1750
605
Unit: mm
480
R50
2°
10
150
250
500
1020
How to make the form of the chair that can express the context of forest protection? Eventually I used the form of interlaced branches of trees to represent the most dynamic natural sign of life.
400
250
5°
100
550
TOP
100
FRONT
LEFT
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The Chair Is To Pay Respect To The Pure Natural Lifestyle.
This project challenge to make a chair without raw matiral, glue and paint which can also convey to the user’s awareness forest protection.
The work takes full advantage of the characteristics of cardboard which can be plugged and fixed into each other without any glue.
I use a kind of corrugated cardboard that found in a garbage dump which it is a very good eco-material for this project because it is up-recycle and very strong to withstand the weight and cut by hand easily.
The thick cardboards represent tree trunks are the load-bearing function; the thin cardboards stand for branches and leaves to make the chair more comfortable.
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Paper Is Minimal, Ordinary and Quiet. The chair uses different size of cardboards attaching to each other without glue, which makes the chair more natural and comfortable. Forest is a symbol of dynamism and vitality in the nature and chair
is the most basic furniture can be regarded as a microcosm of our daily life. I would like to deliver a concept of natural lifestyle as well as a functional chair which can reflect both elements in my work.
MY DREAM GO ON FROM HERE!
Thank you for your time! qiusimin1989@hotmail.com