Design and Thinking

Design and Thinking

Within the first five minutes of this documentary I was already getting great tips from professional designers". Don't fall in love with your first design. Keep exploring past that one idea." I think this is a really important point, especially for me. I am definitely guilty of this from time to time. I end starting a project an focusing all of my attention on one of my first ideas instead of furthering my exploration. Doing so could lead me to something that is even greater. This documentary also made a point that" every idea has a material solution". I had never thought about all the possible solutions to design problems until I started exploring those solutions when stuck on a project. I have yet not find a material solution and can assume that I never will in the future. This documentary made some really good points and it was great to see design companies like the Mission Bike Company explain their goals and strategies with design and thinking. 

Sketches of Frank Gehry

Sketches of Frank Gehry

Frank Gehry is a world famous architect who is known for his "paper-architecure". He decides to create many, many sketch models using paper to create his ideas before they are finalized and commissioned. I was very impressed with his spontaneous, somewhat crazy ideas that other architects would not be able to pull off. He stays open-minded when looking at design. This allows him to create some of the best architecture the world has seen, including the Guggenheim museum and the Ray and Maria Stata center in Cambridge. I have never been one for making a lot of models because sometimes I feel like it could be a waste of time. After watching an expert architect mess around with paper for a long time, I think I changed my mind. This video showed me that experimentation is key with design. 

Zahner

Zahner

When I first arrived at Zahner, I was immediately impressed by the scale of their architectural projects they worked with. Just sitting outside was a massive prototype that took up nearly a whole parking lot. It is hard to grasp the scale of things that are placed on top of buildings and such until you are standing right next to them. That was definitely a first for me. Zahner is a local architectural and metal fabricating company that has been around for nearly 115 years. They primarily use zinc, copper, steel, aluminum and most non composite metals. To cut they're metal they use an extremely powerful water jet than can slice through thick metal without a problem. They have chimbo punch that allows them to create and patent they're own designs in the metal. They also have common CNC routers and laser cutters. They actually used rivets to attach most of they're metals together which surprised me at first. Before we started the Light/Lite/Structure/Skin project I did not see rivets being used often. This was the largest manufacturing company I have been able to see so far and enjoyed the visit in Kansas City.

Materials: Titanium, steel, zinc, copper

Forming: Punch and finger breaker

Cutting: Water jet and shears

Joining: Joints, rivets

Finishing: Polish, oxide

Show & Tell/ How It's Made

Show & Tell/ How It's Made

Our first assignment for Materials and Processes was to select an object of our choice and research how it was made from a raw material into a finished product. I chose to research the standard pencil because it's a tool that pretty much everyone uses and needs but I had yet to know how exactly it came to be made. As you already know, pencils are primarily used for writing and drawing. 

There are hundreds of companies that manufacture pencils worldwide but one of the biggest in the United States currently is Dixon. Pencils are constructed using cedar wood, graphite, glue to hold the graphite, synthetic rubber, aluminum to hold the eraser, paint and sometimes foil stamps. 

It was interesting to discover that pencils originally start as large blocks of cedar. They are then sliced accordingly to create a sheet divided into ten square pencils. these divided sections have been cut in half, filled with graphite and then glued back together. They are then shaped into the form we know and use. The next step is attaching the rubber eraser, painting the wood and finally stamping the side with foil lettering. After watching this entire process, I realized how effect the steps were for mass producing such a product.