english - Design 1o1

LETTER no.79
Thursday, March 17, 2016
on iversity / on design 1o1 redux website
Part 3 - My World / Week 03 - My Trips
Greetings from Weil am Rhein, Germany,
This morning, for fun, we visited the Vitra Design Museum.
Did you know that Frank Gehry was probably the first to have
introduced cardboard as a material to make objects and furniture?
Here’s what he says:
“One day I saw a pile of corrugated cardboard outside of my
office – the material which I prefer for building architecture
models – and I began to play with it, to glue it together and to
cut it into shapes with a hand saw and a pocket knife.”
In case you did not notice, we have his famous wiggle side
cardboard chair featured on the back of today’s postcard.
And this gave us the idea to explore
cardboard sandwiching ourselves.
:-)
Question of the day:
What about changing
our point of view?
Cardboard is normally used in a number of given ways.
To do a number of given things.
What about imagining new uses and purposes for it?
Frank Gehry did. He asked himself a very simple question:
can I make a chair out of cardboard?
His answer was quite fascinating.
Also the fruit bowl in our postcard is an interesting experiment…
From a cardboard fruit bowl, we asked ourselves:
could this new object of ours become our taxi / boat for the day?.
And there we went!
Impressive, don’t you think?
Now, if you were to think about new/unexpected things,
what would you come up with?
What will I do today?
Today, just as you did in the past three days,
you will document your trip.
You are now at “day 4” of your trip. Document it for us using
(at least) 3 images. Tell us about the things you discover,
the people you meet or anything else worth it.
Go with the flow and use the tools and
skills you have accumulated throughout the course!
Work on your images, distort them,
make it rain, make it shine, make collages.
Be consistent with your language!
:-)
Once you have your 3 pictures ready, share them on Instagram using
the hashtags: #WiggleSide and #Design1o1Redux. Then, share a nice
(and meaningful) caption to accompany your images and hashtags.
What will I learn doing this?
Today you will learn a very simple thing:
to (try to) look through your Google Maps / Street View
application with new eyes or glasses.
Can you use it in a different way?
Can you find some hidden properties
and features?
Why do we do this?
To explore and use our tools in a different way.
Mixing up some ingredients. Shuffling things.
Playing around. Experimenting.
As Hippocrates (the father of all doctors) told us today,
“the life so short, the craft so long to learn...” In other words
he added, “it takes a long time to acquire and perfect one’s
expertise and one has but a short time in which to do it”.
Always remember that this is one side of the design equation.
If you master a craft, then you are a perfect craftsman.
Design is different. Design is to master a craft, and then to
forget about it, look at it with brand new eyes and starting all
over again.
Just like starting over...
:-)
Something to remember:
Master a craft. Then, forget
about it and start all over
again (with new eyes).
Further inspiration...
Here some more fun for you to get lost into:
Google Earth Hacks
Google Street View goes underwater!
Postcards from Google Earth
The Color Project by MPC digital
Photographers using Google Street View
9 Artists Working with Google Maps as Their Medium
A lot of things for today.
We wish you a nice day + see you on Instagram!
Today’s Postcard References
Frank Gehry
Cardboard chair,
Frank Gehry
Cardboard fruit bowl
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