This semester's design charrette was pretty interesting. They gave us a manilla folder and told us to make something out of it. We couldn't add anything or take anything away; meaning no tape, glue, drawing, cutting out, etc. The only thing I could come away with from the flyer, that described the project, was the word "transform," and so I based my design off of this word.
An 11x17 "explanation" was the only thing we could turn in with our design.
To elaborate on my flyer, I really wanted to emphasize the process of a transformation. When something is "transformed," it goes from point A - the original state, to point B - the final product of the transformation. I guess this all might sound like I'm pointing out the blatantly obvious, but this was just my thought process. My focus was really what happens in between point A and point B. On top of that, what really interested me, was the how to represent the literal process of a transformation, and how to portray a sense movement and evolution through the manilla folder.
So above is what I ended up with. After giving my own meaning the word "transformation," I think the first thing that came to mind for the actual construction of my design were these small paper Sesame Street cut-out boxes I used make as a little kid. Without much else to work with, I just went with it. The more I played with the idea, the more the little boxes kind of looked like buildings. I then played with some shapes to make the cut outs look cool. This doesn't have much to do with the meaning behind my design, but I thought they also looked cool placed together in the same way big city buildings are. And that's what design is all about, right? Cool looking things.
With all of that in mind, I could say that this design is representational of the process of design and even architecture. That the "buildings" show an abstracted transformation of the fabrication side to architecture: point A - the original state, nothingness, bare land, etc.; to point B - a structure, a building, and so on. The perimeter of the folder has been left untouched to emphasize the starting point and the original state of the object, and the boxes have been arranged so that they seem to be creating something entirely different, with no regard to the folder. And so, this is my representation of neither point A nor point B, but whatever it is that is in between.
I also feel, however, that that was a very wordy interpretation. And I believe, to an extent, that if a viewer cannot understand the meaning of a work without being told what it is, that obviously the work does not represent it's meaning well. I'm not sure that anyone would figure that was the meaning behind my design for this charrette, but, again, this blog is just to show you my thought process.
In the end, regardless of how the meaning was interoperated, the judges liked my design! Even though the critique was a little lengthy, I thought it was a pretty fun charrette, and I got a cool book out of it too.
The project is very successful. The jury appreciated the sensitivity of leaving the edge unaltered, of letting the fold push up and interept the plane, of the tension between the big and little. They were uncertain whether it was too literal in its sense of urban form, but ultiamtely concluded that the form was not inherently or solely urban. Good work!
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