Reflection on the PPVW

Reflection on the Pedal Powered Workshop.

I had little interest or skills in bike mechanics and design when I entered into this workshop. What attracted me to the project was the idea of capturing the design process in an intensive workshop environment over the short time period.

As a high school student you are taught to think about design in a very linear fashion. A project follows a clear path of research, development and refinement. Whilst these elements are crucial to creating a well thought out design the experimental and participatory nature of this project highlights a greater underlying complexity to the design process.

My primary role in the project was as a documenter taking photos, video and running a web log of the workshop’s progress. I made a decision from the outset that I was going to push my technical skills and manipulate the blog so it has its own individual look as well as greater multimedia applications. My experience in web design has been primarily graphics based so I had to learn basic html coding skills. By the end of this project I was able to manipulate the structure of the blog easily – adding links, videos and a new background.

I found it very beneficial to consider the blog as a type of active design folio. Its ability to contain video and sound as well as text and images meant that an outsider looking at the project could gain a better depth of understanding of the process. Also the ability to link to other projects across the world as well as manufacturers and designers let visitors along with the team take different paths in their investigation.

I found that being an active documenter helped. I developed a fascination with bike mechanics and metal work. I was even able to have a go fashioning up some guitar slides on the last day of the workshop (with the help of Michael).


I don’t think the documentation would have worked as well if I wasn’t interested or appreciative of the creativity taking place. There is a degree of censorship involved in trying to capture a project such as this. I needed to make an active choice of what was worth photographing and uploading to the blog. I was very appreciative of Ceri giving me hundreds of his photos of the project. While searching through his collection I was able pick out other important moments in the project that I missed. I was also able to lend some of my design skills during the development process, actively helping James with his shopping trolley concept. I found, however, that spending too much time on this project put me behind in documenting the other groups’ progress.

I found the ride on dinner a memorable experience. It led me to appreciate the greater community that built itself around this project. As a designer I find myself to be very insular when I am in the heat of the moment developing a project. The ride on dinner helped me appreciate a greater context for the work.

Creating a video of the project was also a rewarding experience. Searching through a great deal of footage and images I was forced to try and summarise the project into a few minutes. I felt that it was important to capture the fun, humour and spontaneity of the workshop. It also created another way of archiving the project independently of the blog.

There were a few assumptions going into this project that didn’t work out as planned. The team were not as active on the blog as I expected with very little online discourse through comments and new posts. One team did set up a separate blog for their project, however, this remained static for the remainder of the project. The blog, however, was by no means a failure even though the dynamic was different to other class blogs I had experience with.

The pedal powered vehicle workshop was a very rewarding experience to be a part of. Not only did it challenge my technical skills, it also led me to gain a greater understanding of the creative process. It exemplified how new forms of multimedia documentation can capture a more complex and holistic view of the design process.

Fun times with Nonna and Maria

I was emailing some photos to my sister overseas and thought they would be great on my blog.

One is of me and my grandma on my birthday and the other is with my cousin Maria who lives in france.

Damn Lazy!!!

Hey hey hey,

Been very lazy with the blogging. Actually been very lazy in general.

The guitar has had a bit of a hurdle. I went out and got a beautiful plank of wood made of Jarra from "shiver me timbers" in Williamstown : ) I'm sorry but I will always laugh at a store with a name like that.

Anyway the wood looked really great and it set me back $20 which I thought was reasonable. The only catch is that jarra because it is so dense is a bitch to route and I need to do lots of routing for all the electronics. So I got my hands on a plank of pine (my dad had some at work) and I am going to use that for now and get it put together. The great thing is I can always buy another piece of wood (one thats more appropriate for guitars) and salvage all the other components.

Anyway it all comes back to doing good materials research before you start spending money.

Otherwise Holidays have been good. I'm turning 20 tomorrow so I'm officially no longer a teen (or does that start from 21? )

I am going to build a guitar

Its not really a guitar its actually a "lap steel" like ben harper plays.
To buy one it costs well over a grand and they don't turn up often on the second hand market so I'm going to have a go.

[No Subject]

I needed to change the template for this God damn blog. The green was shitting me. Then again there is green in the new template but I'l forgive it. Its the same template as the project zoo blog that no one visited and I really liked that blog.

Haven't really had a holiday so far - Been working at Priceline heaps which I promised myself I wouldn't do but I really need some money for christmas. My sister is overseas visiting her boy which is great. I can't even begin to think how much she must have missed him. Makes me think that I should get out more -make a bit more of an effort.

I wish I went to the protests in the city today. Instead I got offered an all day shift at work which I greedily accepted. The karma was payed back with me having an aweful day dealing with rude customers and a couple of moron co-workers.

My cousin from France is staying with my family. Her name is Maria and she is a bit older than my dad and the sweetest, most generous person I have ever met. Considering I'm not really close with any relatives outside my immediate family I'm really greatful for having such an amazing cousin. Plus it forces me to work on my italian which is absolutely shocking at the moment.

Typing here has made me realise how great blogs are. Its kindof fucked but I've always associated this thing with uni and when uni is off I kindof ignore blogging. But the reality is that its good to put whats happening in your life into print - Makes me think about it again - even if I'm feeling really dull at the moment. Nobody is even reading this but thats sweet - This is not for you.

Reflection

I remember last semester when there was a backlash against the state of design studio 3 Soumitri mentioned to me that he felt that studies was our most important class. I’d never really considered studies as important as studio. After all studio was where all the money was, all the work for your portfolio to bring with you out to the real world.

Last semester there was a significant change in my whole approach to the course and this came about through design studies 3. I was really fortunate to be part a small but vibrant community of dissent. My peers drove me to question my work and to act rather than talk.

Now this small community has expanded into a massive network of blogs and I feel saddened that I am looking upon it with a sense of loss, like the feeling you get as a child when you realise you have grown out of something. What has happened? This was after all the vision behind the learner centred project. I didn’t stop being as active online because I felt superior, but rather it was because I was trying to hold on to something from the past.

Last semester felt like a culture of change was taking hold and there was an excitement to the work being created and the discourse that was developing. The walls were painted red like a bright clean slate and then what happened? Studies this semester lacked excitement and it lacked debate. There was only a small amount of peers actively participating through the semester. It is understandable that some people don’t like talking to a large group but there should have been other ways of facilitating discussion. Perhaps a series of mini submissions presented to a small group where you can discuss and defend it. This happened briefly when we finished the response to a text and I felt that there was a greater dynamic in those smaller groups. If there was something like that every few weeks that would encourage more expression over the semester rather than just at the end.

There was a great deal of significance in Kate Archdeacon’s comment after we finished presenting submission 3 to the class. She pointed out how interesting the submissions were and how we should establish a time when we can present elements of our research to one another. This was in essence what the semester should have been about. Our personal research should have been at the forefront rather than being conducted concurrently with a general reading/activities schedule. This would be beneficial in numerous ways. Not only would a greater range of knowledge be shared, but also a consistent presentation of our research, perhaps each fortnight, would create a more dynamic class and encourage a lot more discussion. It would also ensure that people were at class on a regular basis.

This is in no way a personal critique of the teaching staff, nor is it an excuse for not being as active this semester as I would have like to have been. I am making the assumption that studies hasn’t been as successful on a whole this semester. If Project Ginger is to be as active as hoped then the approach to Studies 4 Tutorial 2 needs to be rethought for the next group to take it.

My Essay in reflection of Submission 3

Submission 3 Essay


A man is but the product of his thoughts.
What he thinks, he becomes.
- Ghandi

My investigation into sustainability was centred around the notion of how personal values have an impact on how we approach sustainable design. My goal was to gain a greater understanding of the complex system of cultural and social interaction that has led to our current era of excessive consumption. As a designer our role is to create for our society and if our society does not embrace sustainable ideas on a mass scale then one must question if we are still obligated to uphold them. A designer often has a clear system of ethics with which they create and I chose to utilise the time I had in studies this semester to develop my own moral principles by which I design.

Personally, my past approach to design has been very commercial. I often approach my projects on a marketing rather than conceptual level. Currently I run my own web design company in the hope that success in that field will give me greater creative freedom to continue as a freelance designer. I spent a large portion of this semester devoting time to an active business plan for my company. Thus my recent experience in design has been distinctly profit driven. Essentially I have established an anti-narrative that has acted in opposition to later values I have developed when working in the sustainable studies class.

It has been critical throughout this semester that I should develop a greater personal understanding of what sustainability is. A few weeks in I sketched a map of all the forces I thought effected sustainability (appendix 1). I look back on this mess of lines with greater clarity then when I drew them. The key word is awareness. Products and systems have a complex impact on our society and planet. The impact is not only physical but also cultural; be it politically, economically, socially or environmentally. One needs to develop an awareness of this complex system of interacting forces in order to reduce their impact on the future. This is where the idea of value comes into play. The use of bagasse (the residual waste from raw sugar processing) exemplifies how sustainability can be valued. The heat produced by burning bagasse is used to power machines that crush sugar cane, and also for electricity generation . There is an economic incentive for the industry to utilise this energy that would otherwise be wasted, thus it is valued. Where the cost of implementing a system of recycling is greater than the profits entailed then it is scarcely implemented. For example, I directed my investigation towards packaging design, in particular packaging for transportation to retail stores (appendix 2). Currently cardboard is used extensively as it is cheap to produce. From an environmental viewpoint there is a great deal of waste, however, economically it remains the best solution.

I appreciated the recent talk by visiting academic J.C. Diehl from Delft University who showed a diagram on Sustainability. What I appreciated was how he related these principles back to the role of the designer, which in essence is what my study focuses on. A designer has to be considerate to all three of these forces and ideally sustainable design encapsulates all three harmoniously.

A designer often has a choice to utilise sustainable ideas in their creations. This is ultimately reliant on their personal ethics and beliefs. As a student one is presented with work created by design idols such as Ross Lovegrove and Karim Rashid. In a recent interview Lovegrove stated, “I try and imbue everything I do with a value system, a certain trinity of everything that is required. When you design consumer products, one has a moral and ethical responsibility to society, and the ecology as a whole, to make sure what you do is succinct on all levels.” Whilst there is an enjoyable idealism in the quote one must question whether it is simply another example of the rhetoric by which designers often talk. From an aesthetic point of view his work is beautiful, but it would be difficult to argue that his magnesium powder coated “go chair” is ethically responsible on a sustainable level. Herein lies the contradiction that faces a designer. Whilst the ideals are clearly visible Lovegrove has to find a balance between his principles and the client’s desires.

When I was examining my own moral convictions I recalled a small Brisbane graphic design studio, Inkahoots, who exemplify a clear ethical rationale to design. They have chosen to accept work that reflects their moral principles with their focus on community and culturally sensitive work. Their works and ideas are very provocative, often sparking violent reactions with their offices being vandalised and attacked by arson. This determination and conviction is needed when one creates outside of the socially accepted structure of design practice. My past semesters work led to the altruistic conclusion that the design is a selfless act for the greater good. The reality, however, is that our society glorifies individual designers. Success is measured by notoriety and exposure.

In order to create design for a sustainable future, one needs to develop a clear understanding of sustainable ethics and how they are going to have an impact on design practice. These beliefs include; a disdain for waste, a consideration for the environmental impact of materials, an understanding of the lifecycle of your product and the creation of systems that promote symbiotic relationships. I have considered how I have brought these ideas into my design practice and how they represent a conscious effort to further develop my personal ethics.

Whilst small scale recycling may be considered a token act on some levels, developing systems of reuse is a great way a designer can immediately challenge unnecessary waste. My work with the zoo led me to establish a recycling network between Reverse art truck and Melbourne zoo volunteers. I also created an awareness on the utility of unwanted plastic point of sale displays (appendix 3) to the zoo. I also participated in a t-shirt swapping exercise intended to breathe new life into unwanted shirts. What has become evident is that people are willing to practice sustainable ideas if the system is presented to them. What was needed was for someone to organise the network and follow the relationship through to fruition.

My experience with this year’s Fringe Furniture exhibition exemplifies our societies willingness to embrace sustainable ideas as long as they provide economic return. The theme “resurrect” provoked the idea of reducing waste with new creations. My piece was a chair made from folded recycled carpet (appendix 4). What disappointed me, however, was the number of pieces off the shop floor that had little consideration for the environmental impact of manufacture. The piece that won the Tait acquisition award was made of pressed aluminium. Which leads one to question whether the furniture industry itself is sustainable. It is evidently very difficult to be successful creating sustainably within a system that glorifies inconsiderate, wasteful consumption.

It is through personal design projects that ones morals come to the fore. When presented with a brief to create for the Melbourne Zoo I was confronted with a situation that challenged my sustainable principles. The zoo itself is a system that is ethically controversial. My final project is representative of my view that it is the role of the designer to be a facilitator for a new way of thinking within the system. My basic proposal is to create a virtual zoo environment in Melbourne where visitors are able experience, be educated and entertained whilst be aware that profits are being invested into the animals natural habitat. The concept is provocative and in a studio where there is potential for a commercial future creating “enrichment toys” for Melbourne zoo I have created something that is not immediately marketable.

I have approached this studies work as a way to heighten my understanding of individual design practice through gaining an appreciation of the benefits of sustainability. Presenting how I have valued the ideas explored in this class through their impact on my other projects this semester has been the best way to exemplify this.