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Green Design is IN. Psychiatric Help 5¢.

Green design is a great keyword to use to appeal to someone’s HIPPIE IDEALS. But if someone is really 100% Hippie, they’re not going to buy your stuff anyway.

This means, fortunately, that they lie somewhere towards the left on this chart: [W. McKenna, 2006]

Anyone with knows that design is COOL. But here’s one for the thinkers:

The real question is how to make

That’s why SMART designers will make things using the method.

The right type of WIT will get something popped on a blog:

LCD screens have become much cheaper in the last few years. And when you finally buy one, you’re probably just going to take that hunky old CRT and throw it in the trash. Out with the short and stout, in with the sleek and thin. ”Alright,” you say to yourself. Now my desk can look flat and clean like this one:
.

But are you thinking about this? This is more…messy.

Let’s face it: the earth is a mess, but can we make it a designed mess?

YES. Here’s how. Or HOWTO, if you like.

This is an old CRT monitor tube that I transformed into a shimmering teapot that will be the envy of all your guests*.

This unique item can be yours today! Inquire for price.

* Artist, Media Lab, and MIT are not responsible for poisoning, lacerations or other injuries sustained from the CRT-pot item.

The fight is on. Thanks to the propagandists at ”Save Our Sound,” it’s a dirty war of attrition and paperwork. Here the Q.T.:

A private company, Cape Wind, proposed the construction of ‘America’s first offshore wind farm’ in 1999. The project is expected to regularly cover 3/4 of Cape Cod’s energy needs.

Save Our Sound was quickly formed to stop the project in any way possible: legal snowballs, altering public opinon, etc. Interestingly, most environmentalists (including the infamous Massachusetts Audubon Society) support the project — SOS would probably argue otherwise. They are a group that famously represents rich landowners, taking any argument neccesary to flimflam the project, to ‘protect the view from their shoreline mansions. As ‘Clean Power Now!,’ an advocating organization proclaims, ”It’s not the view, it’s the vision!” Right now, it looks pretty good for Cape Wind. It’s still a clash (probably the most violent public opinion schism the Cape has ever seen), but Cape Wind has a growing majority and represents progressivism, reason, and sustainability.

Cape Wind (home)
Cape Wind (wikipedia)
Clean Power Now!

Save Our Sound
NIMBY (wikipedia)

The highest tip of each windmill would reach 417 feet, more than 100 feet higher than the Statue of Liberty. SOS uses a diagram of this comparison to make people scared of the size. In my opinion, the use of this comparison in a bad light is ironic. Just as the Statue of Liberty commemorates America’s freedom from oppression, the windmills would be monuments to the dawn of a new level of independance and freedom from external (and unclean) energy sources.

Usually when I have a design project assigned for, say, next Wednesday, I let the assignment ferment and steep in my head for a while. Something comes to me by Monday, and on Tuesday night I make it. This was not the case. I had let the assignment sit in my head, but instead of developing into a noble concoction with hints of freshness and wit, it had grown mold and sort of dried on the outside. I had no idea what to do for this assignment. So I went to studio and, by midnight, finally came up with a really boring concept, but it would have to do. I would lasercut a groove onto a piece of plexi and its mirror image onto another, then thread acetate in the grooves and have an ‘architectural light-diffusing unit.’ It took me a few minutes to cad, and then I went, slightly depressed with my poor efforts, to the lasercutter. ”Yeah, I’ll probably be done a little early,” said the dude who was using it. So I waited around until it neared 2 o’clock, and he hadn’t finished. Then the 2-4 am person came, and they said they were going to use their whole slot. Great, I said. Thanks. I went home and sat around brainstorming for a while. I decided to use an idea that I had discarded because it was unrealistic: Pineapple paper. I went to bed and set my alarm for when Star Market opened, a whole 2 hours later. I bought a pineapple and an orange, and I blended those suckers up and poured them out onto a mesh that I found in a closet. I had one test made from just pineapple, and one from pineapple plus orange. I sat there blowing a hairdryer at them until classtime. They were both still wet during class, and also stuck to the screen tenaciously. The fruits were fibrous enough so it stayed together, and I bet if I had done it on some smooth surface, like the hood of a car, I could have peeled them off. I don’t like pineapples because they seem so harsh — they have a tough spiked skin, are incredibly acidic, and are fibrous and tough. It was these properties that made me think that it would be good for paper — the acidity would prevent bacteria and stuff from growing on the paper, and the fibrousness would hold it together. It was a good test because I know that this actually would be possible. That is the first pineapple I’ve ever bought and probably the last. Unless I have a daughter and she has a luau-themed birthday party or something. Then I’ll buy one. But I won’t like it.

I hate using multimeters. It’s not that I can’t figure it out, it’s that it always takes a while to compute things; for example the approximate strength of the electricity (to make sure you don’t blow out the fuse in the instrument), the proper way to connect all the cables, etc. Then, the stinkin’ thing gives you a reading that may or may not be off by a power of ten, and may be inexplicably negative.

Introducing the Visual Voltmeter !

Press it against the object you are testing, while holding it in the palm of your hand. Just slide the dial until you can see the glow of a live wire!

The visual voltmeter’s lens glows to indicate a charge flowing in any direction. The secret of the gadget is a polarizing filter coupled with a thin layer of ferrofluid. The sliding bar adjusts the sensitivity for all uses in the home, shop, or office.

Required Tools:

bandsaw, chisels, mallet, ruler, marking guage

~Step 1:

Start by sawing one length of hardwood into two pieces. Set the marking guage exactly to the thickness of the material, and mark both pieces on the ends that will fit together.

~Step 2:

Using the ruler and a pencil, mark on the end of one piece two dovetail-shaped shapes. Space them nicely.


~Step 3:

Using the bandsaw, remove the material around the dovetails (not the dovetails themselves). Leave a little extra material on the dovetails for adjustment later.

~Step 4:

Place the dovetail piece on the second piece, aligning precisely. Make sure the little end of the dovetail aligns with the end of the wood. If you do this backwards, the joint won’t work. Using a sharp pencil, trace the dovetail outline onto the second piece.

~Step 5:

This time use the bandsaw to cut out the inside of the dovetail shapes. Again, leave a little extra on the sides of the hole for adjestment later.

~Step 6:

Use the mallet and chisels to shave thin layers off each dovetail face until the two pieces fit together snugly.



”Et Voilá!”

I started dismantling this old Keystone film camera.

~Step 1: Removed loader plate and spools [Tools: hands]

~Step 2: Removed backplate, feed apparatus. [Tools: screwdrivers] All the parts that are detachable are off. All of these parts are pressed die-cut metal. One is corroded from contact with the film. I stopped deconstructing here, because I would have had to destroy the camera. Produced in the 1960s, this object is very difficult to take apart. This would make it difficult to repair/service and add/substitute accessories. Even the lens is firmly machine-attached. The rest of the body of the camera is made of cast metal parts that are pressure-fitted. This camera must have been marketed as an easy-to-use family camcorder. Thus, it was quickly replaced by similar ‘family’ VHS cameras.

~SO…I started dismantling this pen-light.

~Array 1: The Kit extra nib, extra batteries, pen-light, packaging (press-cut foam), box (injection-molded plastic with ‘live’ flexible hinge)

~Array 2: The Business End pressed/coated metal housing, mechanical pressed metal twist-extender, metal/plastic pen connector, cast metal nib, ink, tubular metal inkwell, injection-molded screw-on nib holder

~Figure 1: Electronics housing. I couldn’t get this sucker apart. As you can see I used advanced tools like a screw and a brick to bash it up.

~Array 3: The Pleasure End Bent-wire clip, solic plastic light diffuser, the bashed up pieces of the injection-molded plastichrome screw-on ring, electronics housing and electronics (+2 detail shots).
The circuit board has three tiny LEDs, and two spring ends. The small one touches the batteries directly, and the big one closes the circuit by passing current through the metal housing itself. It also provides a springy-tight fit for a clean loop.

No wonder.

My name is Gabriel Blue Cira and I’m an architecture student at MIT. I’ve become increasingly interested in furniture design and general object design over the past few years. I like to find old chair skeletons and refit them with interesting materials. I’m a monitor in the N51 woodshop, and I’ve made tables and chairs there, mostly of wood and steel. I use the CNC router here and there, either to cut furniture components or molds for vacuum-forming parts. I have a (healthy) obsession with contours. This past summer I worked for Howëler + Yoon Architecture, and my main project was more object design than architecture. I designed and prototyped a solar-powered, floating, glowing, tiling ‘pillow’ for a large exhibit for display (hopefully) in the Boston harbor next to the ICA.