Esquisse 3

Esquisse 2 - Cardboard Structure

Folding Look

Some really cool designs:
http://kostasvoyatzis.wordpress.com/2007/10/14/inspired-by-origami-art/

http://www.foldschool.com/_about/about_start/about_start.html

http://www.designboom.com/cardboard3.html

Origami

Here is the origami I played around with this week. I had a good amount of fun so i also did some other forms like a boat and a dragon. I am not sure what the 'flat pattern' is, but I can put them up after class, and i learn what exactly it is.

Origami Findings

Just some resources that I hope people find helpful!

cubes -

http://www.monkeysee.com/play/7872-paper-cube-making-origami

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ccXDAu75HY - awesome

http://www.mathematische-basteleien.de/oricube.htm
-the same blow up cube, but step by step format, with the math at the end.

pyramids -

http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to/video/how-to-origami-a-pyramid-254002/view/

http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to/video/how-to-origami-a-diamond-pyramid-165961/

http://www.origamimauro.it/index.asp?modelli=8&tradizionali=25&valore=1&percorso=diagrammi/tradizionali/piramide

Sphere -
http://www.expertvillage.com/video/125845_origami-decorative-sphere.htm




http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to/video/how-to-origami-a-fourteen-point-star-271720/
unrelated to the project for this week, but it shows how interlocking pieces and form interesting objects.

NGV Visit

I did a few sketches at the NGV, they can be viewed HERE

I wrote some notes that are probably illegible after the resizing.
They were basically what i found interesting about the pieces, not so important.

Philippe Starck

Philippe Starck works as a product designer and interior designer who’s focus is on mass production. His furniture is very organic and fun to look at, though at times it does not function as well as it appears. He works mostly with polycarbonate for its ability to be manufactured, including cost, speed, and finishes. So unlike a good amount of other famous designers who mostly make pieces for certain situations, Starck works the corner of the market that is seen the most, costs the least, and is more available to the public.

Frank Gehry

As a deconstructive designer, Frank Gehry’s works with any material had can get his hand on, from scrap metal in junk yards to cardboard boxes, and his forms are often unpredictable and skew away from the simple modern forms. A fair amount of Gehry’s designs follow the form before function idea, a perfect example of this would be the Knoll Chair made out of many pieces of bent plywood. Aside from the Knoll Chair his furniture is solid, built out of one material and creates one flowing form.

Verner Pantom

Panton’s furniture immediately makes me think of the Jetson’s cartoon. The designs are obscure and are an experiment in science fiction or futuristic form. His chairs come in all sorts of shapes and colours, and he also uses a large variety in materials. He would go from making a chair that is entirely bent wood, and then use a combination of fabric, foam and metal on the next design. The chair he is most known for is his Panton Chair which was the “First single unit cantilevered chair made of moulded plastic” - vernerpanton.com.

Charles and Ray Eames

The Eameses played a giant roll in Modern Design. Not by just being a great influence with their designs, but they developed practical uses for technologies such as wire mesh chairs, plastic resin chairs, and most importantly, fibreglass. Most of their more famous works include the application of bent plywood initially used by Aalto. Their furniture often displays the use of three or more materials from woods, plastics and metals. They use very hard surfaces but create soft moulds to create a more inviting and comfortable chair.

Josef Hoffmann

As a furniture designer, Josef Hoffman could be described as being between the Arts and Craft, and Modern design movements. His furniture’s style is very heavy or cumbersome and also ornamented which is just the opposite of what we would call Modern Design. The materials he selected for the sofas and armchairs, mostly wood and leather or cotton also reflect the Arts and Crafts movement. His work was clearly an influence on the modernist movement because simple geometric shapes like cubes and circles are the dominating characteristic in the forms, and he was not opposed to using machines to fabricate his work.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe is credited as being one of the designers that began the modernist design movement in the early 1900’s. He worked firstly as an architect, and designed the furniture that would fill his buildings. His work takes heavy advantage of the development of steel and iron as a building material. The strength of the metals allowed Mies to create very minimal frameworks to build around and create lightness in the buildings aesthetic. He was able to imitate the light feeling of his buildings in his furniture by using cantilevers and as few joints and intersections as possible.