futurecraft

futurecraft.org

the end is near…final presentations are this wednesday december 12 from 9-11am with an open house from 11-1pm in the medialab lobby. all are invited, and we are fortunate to be visited by a distinguished panel of reviewers:

john maeda

hiroshi ishii

gus rancatore

amber frid-jimenez

james patten

in the last weeks of class you’ll be developing your final projects into something relevant and memorable. the projects should:

use one or more critical design methods covered in class (materials, detechnologizing, sustainability, body-ness, open source, ethnography, kinetics)
be blogworthy (relevant)
be provocative
be experiential
be presented persuasively

your can produce:
a working prototype
a PR campaign (i.e. artifact, video, text, graphic)
a proof-of-concept
a process (i.e. instructable)
a system (i.e. webpage)

here are some of the projects we mentioned for inspiration:

james patten’s corporate fallout detector

saul griffith’s low cost eyeglasses

mckinley and csikszentmihalyi’s government information awareness

auger and loizeau’s radio tooth

as we mentioned in class, your main homework for this week (nov 7) is to
UPDATE YOUR BLOGS.
we’ll be doing a midterm grading assessment this week after class so make sure everything you’ve done is documented and up there, and add any other ideas/directions/thoughts/issues you’ve been kicking around…

on nov 7, we’ll spend the first half hour or so catching up on reports of up-cycling assignments for those of you who weren’t in class on last week - so be ready to present if you haven’t already. then i’ll be giving a lecture on ‘Crafting for the body -> Crafting a new body’
i’ve emailed you with two readings- “From the Human Form Flows Fluidity’ by Steven Skov Holt (a chapter from “Blobjects and Beyond: The New Fluidity in Design) and Chapter 1 from Galen Cranz’s “The Chair: Rethinking Culture, Body, and Design” as references for the lecture. ‘The Chair’ reading is kind of long, its culturally interesting but feel free to skim. After the lecture we’ll be starting an in-class small group design exercise on Design in Body Scale which will continue into your assignment for next week.

William McDonough’s talk on ‘cradle-to-cradle’ design

here are some of the resources i consulted in preparing my lecture slides:

CHECKLIST FOR LIFE-CYCLE DESIGN/DESIGN FOR THE ENVIRONMENT
the second page of this pdf contains all of the recommendations i made and more

PC MAGAZINE - WHAT’S INSIDE YOUR LAPTOP?

GREENPEACE’S GUIDE TO GREENER ELECTRONICS

GREEN MY APPLE

THE MAKER’S BILL OF RIGHTS

HANDBOOK ON ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT OF PRODUCTS

THE 100-MILE SUIT

FREECYCLE

KEEP AMERICA BEAUTIFUL - SOURCEWATCH

SILICON VALLEY TOXICS COALITION

hi guys,
in class today you all picked a time slot for medialab shop training, which will only happen tomorrow (thursday) 11-12 and friday 10-11 and 11-12. meet in the laser cutter room in the basement and be nice to john.
for next week, please blog and give a 1-minute presentation about an environmental issue/product/campaign that you care about.
have a good weekend!

we are fortunate to be visited next week by two visionaries of craft: sergio dulio and leah buechley. a little about each of them:

sergio dulio is a prophet of mass customization for the shoe market, co-author of the recent Mass Customization and Footwear:Myth, Salvation or Reality? : A Comprehensive Analysis of the Adoption of the Mass Customization Paradigm in Footwear and frequent visitor to the medialab. you can read an interview with him here.

leah buechley is a master cyber-seamstress who totally rethinks the way technology is integrated into clothing. here is a video of her ‘bracelets,’ and you might want to visit her website, especially the do-it-yourself instructions she has generously made available.

this is a two week assignment to start exploring topics for your final project. pick a domain that you are interested in pursuing for at least two weeks. first, research the area, find out the state of the art in materials, technology, or production methods. what are the problems in this domain? what is are the potential future directions? second, come up with a proposal or a product or an advertisement for radically transforming this domain by de-technlogizing the materials, processes, use, etc… this can be a social problem, a technology problem, an economic problem, an ergonomic/usability/aesthetics problem… convince us that your solution is necessary.

When you post a youtube video, it should look like this:

<object height=”350″ width=”425″><param value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/LwvBUjuZb-o” name=”movie”></param><param value=”transparent” name=”wmode”></param><embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/XXXXXXX” height=”350″ width=”425″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash”></embed></object>

Where XXXXXXX is the number of the video.

your assignment for next week is to invent a material. you can combine existing materials, experiment with the preparation of conventional materials, cook up something new, etc… the point is to solve a problem (or create a new one) through the invention of a material instead of conventional means. you can find a lot of ingredients at pearl art supply or any hardware store. also, please read ivan illich’s tools for conviviality in preparation for next week. in the meantime here are some material inspirations:

websites:
http://www.transstudio.com/tm/
http://www.materialconnexion.com/pa1.asp

books:
Ashby, M & Johnson, K. Materials and Design: The Art and Science of Material Selection in Product Design. Butterworth-Heinemann, 2002.
(excellent basic reference on material properties and processes)

Brownell, Blaine. Transmaterial. Princeton Architectural Press, 2005.
you can download this book (good for inspiration) as a pdf here:
http://www.robotecture.com/tm/
(scroll to bottom, its called transmaterial.pdf)

Manzini, Ezio. The material of invention. Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, 1989.

Kennedy, Sheila. KVA: Material Misuse. London: Architectural Association, 2001.

Lupton, Ellen. Skin. London: Laurence King, 2002.

Paola Antonelli, “Introduction,” from Mutant Materials in Contemporary Design, (New York, 1995)

Toshiko Mori, Immaterial/ Ultramaterial: architecture, design, and materials, ed. Toshiko Mori (New York, 2002)

AND REMEMBER TO READ TOOLS FOR CONVIVIALITY!