During this project, there have been a number of email interactions between Damon and myself, which are probably quite significant in terms of the final direction the project has taken. For the record, here are some of those thoughts:
Just had the thought that a large component of DIY is haptic experience, and associated heuristic learning. And that perhaps we should think around products that encourage that.
So something like the rockpool viewer is intersting – encourages observation, haptic interaction, and learning in children.
And perhaps a product geared toward children is intersting because they are the ones likely to be growing up in a world with increased cheap imports etc. So perhaps a puzzle (two or three D) where some of the pieces are missing? Or where certain elements need to be sourced by the child/user.
Just thinking if creativity/DIY comes from need, then how do we develop a product that creates a need? At least for a certain element thereof before it is complete.
Just thoughts.
I guess what we need to decide is whether we want to have subtle visual clues that reference the DIY approach (like trubridge), or something that encourages DIY in the user. I suspect what Muireann picked up (based on our conversation with her on Monday) from the presentation was a leaning toward using the (very) subtle visual clues, not necessarily using DIY style materials to make the product, or encouraging DIY in the user.
Anyhow, chat more tomorrow. Just trying to get thoughts out there.
Thoughts...
Think we should be concentrating primarily on form first, and materiality thereafter. I think that given the playground/children context, the form and the way in which the pieces fit together is very important. What those pieces are made out of is the next step, and should be whatever best facilitates/allows the form we have designed.
I guess my concern with wood is the only reason that toys were made out of wood in NZ/elsewhere is because that’s what people were limited to. There was no capacity to make complex moulded forms. And I don’t think that we need to place the same historical constraint/limitation on ourselves. Yes it should encourage DIY, but we don’t need to place the historical technological constraints on ourselves. Its the year 2008.
After our presentation, a few people mentioned that the Dovetail Table looked like it would work well as children's furniture. In our criteria scoring, it also came out tops.
We are both quite interested in exploring this idea further, as this ties in very well with our original problem statement, i.e. because of the influx of cheap imported items into NZ, the need for DIY is gradually diminishing and there is a need for a product that encourages DIY activity.
Making furniture for children that encourages hands on three dimensional learning definately fits with this. So we're thinking furniture scale three dimensional puzzles, or pieces that can interlock with pieces of dowel, e.g. two chairs interlock to form a table, and so on. So think large scale tetris, building blocks, interlocking elements, rounded and made suitable for children to interact with.
The individual elements should remain simple, so that the kids can come up with a large range of potential combinations.
We visited the Early Childhood Development Centre and Unitec and took some photographs of the furniture currently being used, as well as chatting with the staff to see what sort of heights the existing furniture is, as well as which items the kids enjoy using. Table height is 500mm, and these are used for both standing and seated work.
Items that were popular were those that the kids could physically interact with, i.e. move/drag around, roIl over, take apart and re-assemble etc. This means the components should be reasonably lightweight, and have grips, handles etc. that small hands can get around.
So, what we're trying to achieve is a clever, interlocking 3D set of modular furniture that is both functional and playful.
Two more boards, sorry we are unable to upload at this stage due to technical reasons.
An initial look around th e house to find some junk lead me to spot the BBQ which is about to die in the gas jet department at which stage I will be eagerly awaiting the next inorganic rubbish tip. In fact each time the inorganic comes around it seem every second house has a BBQ to through out. Here is my DIY resourceful solution...
As far as I can tell with the right tweaks our BBQ would form quite a tidy lounge deck chair to roast in the sun.
With the important features of DIY style identified;
Simple
Clean
*minimal materials
evidence of assembly
*customisable
*self assembly
connection beteween maker and object
we have came down to 3 product areas which we decided would have very good potential for further development.
Lighting
possibly a light that can be changed or personalised in some way by the user
Seating
to reflect the overall values of DIY resourcefulness within its form
Seating (or something similar)
that is made by the user from directions or just seeing it, from common materials.
Ombelico is a modulas storage system designed by ALU and Marc Sadler. It's made by recylcled wood + polypropylene and use of belt to tie parts is a great fashion detail.
the seatbelt belt
An urban twist on the classic "d" ring belt, made from automobile seatbelts and 2" steel hardware
http://www.alamodestuff.com/belts.htm
We had a bit of a brain storm to come up with some products which could be developed to translate the ideals that we have discovered about the DIY style.
We have decided that it would be quite possible to have a product which represents another aspect of NZ culture at the same time as representing the DIY/ resourceful aesthetic.
Simple
Clean
*minimal materials
evidence of assembly
*customisable
*self assembly
connection beteween maker and object
(* = most important features)
Categories and examples of some ideas are as follows:
Festive - xmas tree, party games
Picnic/ Beach - beach trundler, wine glasses, shelter, chair
Sports - Underwater viewer, volley ball net
Gardening - garden sculpture, platform, mini green house
Fashion - corrugated iron cap, ratchet belt
Household item - hand saw steak knife, nail box stool/chair, cairn calender
Camping - surface, dish washer, screen, wind diverter, ply cool box
This is the second of our two panels - thought we would practice what we preach and construct a board with many essential element of ad hoc DIYing.
This post contains a link to our presentation, as hosted on Slideshare.com. I tried to embed a widget, which worked, but I couldn't format the shape of the widget, so all you get is a long thin box which means you can't see the whole presentation! Widget schmidget!
Please click on the link below, and then navigate through the slides.
