rmurphy

political prosthetic

rmurphy — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 14:12:07 +0000

In researching the Chinese finger trap, Tsitsi and I noticed that it had many names including Chinese handcuffs and Mexican handcuffs. We thought that by scaling up this gag gift we could turn the derogatory meanings on their head.

The handcuff is a simple weaving of semi-rigid strips into a cylinder. When the cylinder is pulled, it is lengthened and thus the circumference shrinks and grabs your finger.

Instead of trapping two fingers of one individual, we want to prolong an interaction between two people (handshake). The handshake’s purpose is to convey trust, balance, and equality. BUT, there are various peculiarities of the handshake. One common question regarding the greeting is, how long should the handshake last. The handshake cuff is the third party accepting all blame for the extended hand shake. The two participants must work together to end the greeting and if it does go a little long, it was the device’s fault not either participants.

Please see Tsitsi’s blog for more info.

Design a new material

rmurphy — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 14:16:27 +0000

I don’t have any documentation of my (new) material. As presented in class, I used the d.i.y. shopping bag material (the material used to make my opensource wallet) as a start.
The shopping bag is made into a new material by simply ironing four to six plies together. The plastic bag melts at a low temperature and the multiple plies fuse together making a material very similar to tyvec (strong, waterproof, and kind of ugly).
The first thing I wanted to try was to create this plastic/tyvec-like material imbedded with other elements. I first imbedded the shopping bags with rubber bands. This was not as successful as I imagined it would be. In order to make it work, you must stretch the rubberbands across the ironing board between the plies of shopping bag. Then you have to iron them together as a single sandwich. The problem is that the rubberbands tend to snap at a lower temperature than that which melts the bags. I got one of these to work, but that was after trying it many times. (I will post photos of the finished product later today)
The second material was made by imbedding pipe cleaner into the shopping bag. This worked far better than I expected. I simple placed the pipe cleaner in rows between the shopping bag plies and ironed the construction together. The end result is a thick plastic which can be formed 3 dimensionally. Accidentally, I learned that if the pipe cleaner/shopping bag construction is not thoroughly heated, the pipe cleaner can be removed, and the tyvec-like material will have perfect air pockets (perhaps an insulator?).
The last material was an attempt to make a water-proof double-sided felt. I ironed synthetic felt on either side of 4 plies of shopping bags. The material required higher sustained heat, but once I had played with it, I could make it easily. Because there are two pieces of felt, it can be different colors on either side.

I WILL POST PHOTOS LATER TODAY

You’re Swimming in it

rmurphy — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 06:08:33 +0000

This is not a complete project, but the beginings of what I would like to work on for my final project.

My previous post was about the West Nile problem in the Southwest in relation to the housing bust. Forclosed houses with pools are left empty and the pools unmanaged, thus a mosquito problem. Initially, local municipalities were dumping pesticides into the swimming pools, but a more recent approach has been to put fish in the pools. The fish require no maintenance and eat the mosquito larvae.

As Amanda mentioned during my presentation, it seems odd that there is a problem of too much water in a region where water is a scarcity. So, I would like to find a way to use these pools as existing infrastructure for a new system of water management. This project has potential to go in a few directions, and honestly I am not quite sure where to take it yet……..here are my thoughts so far.

I started by looking at suburban development and it’s history. What was fascinating was the idea of the sub-urbs as a means of civil defense. Many leading scientist (such as Norbert Wiener - the founder of cybernetics) and planners believed that the only way to ensure survival of atomic weapons threats was to disperse the American public. There is a bit more info. in the slides below.
For a quick analysis, I focused on the city of Hemet, California. Hemet was the first city I heard about with a Mosquito infestation caused by abonded pools (newshour). Hemet, it seems (after looking with google earth), is full of new housing subdivisions. I picked one in order to better understand the parameters of this project. I did some very basic counting and made some very general assumptions and believe that reclaimed swimming pools as infrastructure is a viable project (look at the slides below).

I imagine that this existing infrastructure could do a few different things.

1. The bottled water industry is being pressed to print the source of its water on their packaging and is balking in large part because they are simply repackaging tap water. That along with the environmental cost of shipping water around the world in disposable containers has become a concern. (think outside the bottle) I feel that recontextualizing municiple water supplies could make the public more aware and protective of their resources.

2. In order to create a large enough infrastructure to serve a broad public, multiple swimming pools would have to be physically linked. What else could this expanded infrastructure allow? Could this be a means of moving goods and services at a domestic scale? (perhaps a sort of LazyRiver) Or, better yet, a new form of transportation…..swim to your neighbors house. (ala The Swimmer see the trailer below)

3. Lastly (but if you have any suggestions…please let me know), this could serve as a way of replenishing groundwater supplies. Groundwater recharging is becoming a necessity for many regions. Many undergroung aquifers are being depleted faster than they can be renewed. The swimming pools would need little modification (because it is already in the ground) to get water back into the soil.

those are my general thoughts…..any input would be appreciated………thanks

a little bit about ‘green design’

rmurphy — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 13:34:32 +0000

I am interested in left-over infrastructure and its use/effects. With all the concern over water harvesting, it is interesting that the suburban landscape is retaining too much water by way of the private swimming pool. The housing bust has left thousands of foreclosed homes and abandoned pools for the mosquitoes.

There have been two responses so far.
1) just dump pesticides into the pools
2) stock the pools with fish

I imagine the second approach has the potential to re-imagine more left-over infrastructures as new balanced habitats.

newyork times
foreclosures turn pools green
usa today
national geographic
department of public health

de technologize?

rmurphy — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 12:50:35 +0000

This is an ongoing project from my last architecture studio….but its origins are in de-technologizing suicide prevention at the Golden Gate Bridge. Whether it is still applicable is up for debate.

The project started by taking a close look at the debate surrounding suicide prevention on the Golden Gate Bridge. Many solutions have been proposed (cameras at every light post, lasers along the periphery, and just a fence) but none seem to meet the public approval. This project proposed reprogramming part of the bridge as a means of appeasing public concerns and stopping the suicides.

golden-gate-remains-1.pdf

open source construction

rmurphy — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 13:25:21 +0000

I started my project with this make magazine project. In the video you learn how to make a type of fabric from plastic bags. I was interested in a “new” material that can be constructed from a commonly available material with one simple tool (the iron).What was disappointing about their vlog was that the fabric, after being made, was sewn together. The power of this material seemed to be its ability to fuse infinitely with the application of heat. Why not just make seams the same way you make the material, by heating it up?

Here are the results. For this wallet I used a blue bag for the body and added (ironed on) a red stripe.

object dissection

rmurphy — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 02:34:33 +0000

My shoe dissection