Sense of place - Rock Chair

Rationale

The area chosen is Empress park, Hurstville. This park is conviniently located in housing area and is just about 10 minutes walk from main business area. The park includes playground, bbq pit, basketball court and soccer field. Although it has strategic location and can provide various activites, it was observed that many do not stay in the park for long. From observations and interviews, the park goers can be divided into 2 groups, the morning and afternoon goers. The morning goers are mainly the older group of people (60 and above) who accompany their grandchilds (4 and below). The afternoon goers are mainly yound adults or teenagers who play sports there. While the bbq pit is rarely used.

When I interviewed the grandparents why they did not stay for long in the park. Most of them said it was because they were tired of standing and were bored. This is probably because there are very few chairs in the park and these chairs are located far from the playground so they will not be able to keep a good watch of their grandchildrens playing in the playground. Thus, the rocking chair will be built closer to the playground which will enable them to relax while at the same time being able to watch their grandchilds. The rocking chair is also popular, especially amongst the older generation and this can encourage more people to come to the park or stay longer there. This is further supported by statistic which shows that the area has large proportion of older group of people (20% are 60 and above, compared to national average, 16.7%). The soothing and comfortable nature of rocking chair may encourage people to stay around longer and thus this provides more opportunities for them to intereact with one another.

The reason why the younger group does not stay there for long is quite similar too. Most of them said it was because the place is boring. The organic and modern design of the chair will likely interest them to stay around. There will be also a number of these chairs so they can enjoy relaxing and interacting with their friends after their sporting activities. These may also encourage more to have bbq in the area as more seats will be available and the rocking chair will make it more fun and comfortable to hang around.

This rocking chair has the potential to bring not only this park alive but other parks as well. This is because the rocking chair is enjoyed across different cultures and age groups.

Social Packaging Project - Memory Pill Bottle

Bio-inspired storage system final : Spine Bookshelves

Compressed

Expanded

Rationale
This design is inspired from the vertebral body of human. I found human vertebral bones as a good inspiration for designing shelves. Spinal column allows you to stand upright, bend and twist. It is flexible; it allows movement in several places. It is very interesting as they are very rigid, solid and structured but at the same time it also have liquid-like properties that resulted from the S-shape of the whole structure.

The back of the shelves that holds the structure together shows a strong resemblance to the human spinal cord while the ‘leaves’ of the shelves resemble the vertebral bones. It is flat at the back as it is mounted against the wall and from the side view we can see the contours.

The shelves shows some resemblance with human vertebral body, for instance the color, which is white like bones, and the shape and the structure. The interlocking features of the shelves also inspired from the way spine body constructing and interlocking with each other, mimicking the 4 facet joints in each vertebrae body and how muscles, membranes and correct posture maintaining the structure. They are interlocking not only vertically but also horizontally, that what makes them so strong and balance eventhough it is flexible. The bottom part of the shelves shows bigger sizes in resemblance of the lumbar spine area at human spinal column for their weight bearing function.

This shelves is perfect for high density living space. It is mounted on the wall to save floor spaces and it can be dropped down when we are ready to use it. With the interlocking features in this shelves, these shelves can be compressed together and only take a very little space on your wall; in fact it only take around 51cm when it is compressed and when it is expanded it can reach about 103 cm. When you want to use it you can slide the button that connect each shelves through the maze on the 'spine' back and it is ready to used. The height of the shelves also adjustable so it meets many needs.

Technical drawings

Project 2 Studio 2011 - Upcycled Utility / Pendant Light

Cutting diagram 1:5

The main concept of this lamp is actually to simply celebrating the characteristic of the material itself and to play with shades/shadows. One of the best characteristics of this material is that it won’t tear easily. I have been playing with that characteristic to create a lamp that looks hard to make with paper because paper could easily tear apart. Synthetic paper is nice because it has similar characteristic with paper and plastic at the same time.

The shape of the light looks heavy and complicated, but delicate at the same time. The layers are contradicting with each other as it is facing different side, but yet it is successfully gathered in one harmony. These ‘contradicting’ layers also create nice shade as the light managed to get out of the lamp through this space. And when the light is on, not only the shades come out but the colour from the poster on the back also peek out and thus creating a very nice colour and shades. I put the light bulb at the centre so that the light could be distributed to the whole lamp. It’s also nice to see that in several spots when it is near the light source, the material begins to show it’s transparency .

I’ve avoided folding techniques in the making process because the material is pretty thick thus it’s hard to fold and hard to make a crisp line. I decided to use cutting or slicing techniques and tried to produce a lamp with waste as minimum as possible and with less part so it is easy to assemble and to flat pack. I arrived at making this lamp with only 1 flat piece of paper joined by nuts and bolts.

The particular poster (Cowboys & Aliens) was chosen because I found it beautiful as it has nice colour gradation throughout the whole poster. I managed to capture the beauty of the colour in my lamp, which consequently has 2 major colours like the poster, blue and brown. These colours blend well as each colour is complement to each other and one colour is not stronger than the other. Those 2 colours are also in balance as they have the same level of gradation, which is captured beautifully when the light is on.

Project 1 Studio 2011 - Mortar & Pestle

Rationale
Besides its unusual shape and the way this mortar and pestle assembled, the main thing that distinguishes this product from the one in the market is the expanding shape of the pestle towards the lid. Not only it has a fitting diameter handle for our handgrip, this shape also prevent our hand slipping over the pestle and at the same time it reduces the power needed to hold the pestle tightly while using it. Furthermore, the concave interior of the mortar aims to avoid the objects being spilled out during pounding and grinding.

I actually put a lot of time sketching and making mock ups to get the best size and shape of these tools. The main difficulty is to make the size of the mortar and the pestle in balance but not to put aside the overall look as they are also stand as one piece. The size and shape of the mortar will affect the size and the shape of the pestle and vice versa. Finally I arrive at this size where the mortar is not as small as the one used in medical place and not as big as the one in the market (those big stone and granite mortar) but big enough to make sauce or paste.

Another main feature of this tool is its material, which is stainless steel. The reason why I choose stainless steel over other material is because it has some technical properties that offer some benefits such as;

• Strong and long lasting 
• Better than stone because it is cohesive and corrosion resistance; small bits of the mortar and pestle won’t get mixed with the objects 
• Better than wood because it is not absorbent and non-porous; won’t absorb/ trap the ingredients being ground and prevent the growth of microorganisms from the food particles that are left in the mortar and pestle surface
• Non-reactive with alkaline or acidic foods so it is safe either for food preparation or medical use
• Easy to clean; dishwasher safe

Technical Drawings in A1 (Click the image to get better resolution)

Feedbacks are more than welcomed :)

Surface and Structure

Water filter model made from blue foam and 3mm foam board skeleton. Feedbacks are welcomed (:

ciao!