Materials Samples

My parents found a snake skin in the garage. This is normally bad news but it worked out great for me and my material samples. It was very fragile and dried out so I thought I would cut the largest intact piece I could and press it between two sheets of glass and solder around the outside. The scales are iridescent and it looks completely awesome.

Shapeways Goodies!

Just got another order in from Shapeways! I am so totally addicted!

Notes from Sarah Kate Burgess and Jaque Liu Lecture

Materials Hype Project Slides

Jewelry Project III

This is my maquette for our third project in J2. It's supposed to be based off of a historical period, people, and/or movement. It has to have a hollow form and a stone setting. The wings of this piece will be etched brass and the scarab will be a hollow repoussed form in copper. I hope to find a jade or lapis cabochon to set in silver at the focal point.

Cork is a magical material

I was online reading up on sustainable materials and I happened upon a description of cork and was amazed. I had no idea how awesome this substance is! Did you know you don't even have to kill the cork oak tree in order to harvest its cork? All you do is peel the bark off and the tree is left to regenerate. The average tree can be safely harvested every 9 to 12 years. Once processed, the cork can be used as a thermal insulator, an impermeable plug (wine cork), a floor material that is much better on joints, a flotation device, a slip-resistant surface, or interior decorating. Blows my mind!

http://sustainablematerials.com/cork/

Jewelry Progress: Narrative II

It's all starting to come together!!

Reflections on Cradle to Cradle

This reading was a bit overwhelming for me because the sustainability concept is still a bit foreign. Sure I recycle and compost as much as the next gal but I never conducted deep research on all of the aspects of sustainable design. This reading was a bit frightening and made the assignment of designing something sustainable seem completely daunting. It just seems like a very important topic and designing for a sustainable world requires an incredible amount of thought and consideration. All of these readings and the professors' passion for the topic made it seem very unreachable. I feel like no matter what I conceive, I will have forgotten one important perspective I hadn't taken into consideration. The whole area is very frightening and I think I just need to research the hell out of it.

Right, back to Cradle the Cradle. Anywho, the one major message I got from this reading has to do with the "one size fits all" concept. I feel like this is a good place to start in designing for sustainability...or rather designing in general. The book mentions the interplay between considering the global effects of your product while designing locally. It's important to consider global consequences, may they refer to the effects on the rest of the world or the product's passage through time. It is also important to include customerization in your designs because making a design to apply to a large group really makes it so your design doesn't truly fit any individual or small community. Communities and individuals use products differently and the designer has to keep this in mind. The book included the example of detergent and how it is designed with one method of use in mind but these women in a small community were cleaning there clothes against rocks and therefor using the detergent in a way that wasn't considered while it was being designed. I just found the interplay between global and local to be a difficult thing to master but also something that I need to keep in mind and strive for. I am no expert on sustainable design but I feel that this will help me in getting started.

Jewelry Progress: Narrative

Repoussed piece in the pitch pot while I'm chasing.

After finished chasing and adding hammer texture and patina. I'm pretty happy with how this turned out. I'm excited to see the end piece with all the elements combined.

Sketches and Digital Maquette: Chairarium

Materials Design Research

Here are some photos we collected in conducting design research for this project. We researched living furniture, recycled furniture, and modular furniture. We are working to combine all three.

Material Collection Field Trip

Today at 12pm the Dream Team assembled for a field trip to a junk yard in Baltimore to look for our used pipes we needed. We found just what we were looking for around back and got a collection of PVC pipes that were previously used in a building for $40 (includes the cutting they had to do to fit them in Tai's car). All in all a lovely experience.

This is a photo of the front of the establishment and the bearded fellow who sold us the pipe.

Here's a view of the back of the junkyard where the pipe was cut.

This is the view from my seat in the back of the car with pipe jabbing lovingly into my side.

Here's the cart we loaded the pipe onto and meticulously navigated through the sculpture room and into rm2006.

Our final collection of pipe to be found by the eye cleaner and first aid kit.

Materials: Dream Team Brainstorming

There was a brainstorming session in rm2006 for two hours after Materials class last Thursday. With the combined brains of Megan Dattoria, Tai Pong, and Elise Robbins a wonderful project was conceived using recycled and living materials. Here are some photos from the power hours.
Above is our creative caffeine involving as many objects as we could think of that we use in our daily lives that could be reinvented using sustainable materials.