Develop:Design::Tell:Story

[ A R T I F A C T ] :

In studio we watched Midsummer Nights Dream. An artifacts in Midsummer Nights Dream is the flower that the fairies used to cast spells on the couples. Artifacts are in so many aspects of design. In Design History we each were assigned a year and we have four categories in which we have to list ten happenings of both B.C. and A.D.. I really learned a lot about how different discoveries and global events impact the world of design. The design of artifacts often influences a designer in the making of their own representation. Something else I gathered from our reading for Design History was architecture is arguably the most accurate, the most truly revealing, human cultural artifact. from Roth's Understanding Architecture(12).  

I am continuing to learn about delight in architecture.  In Patrick's class we discussed how light is maybe one of the most important elements of delight.  In Suzanne's class we used our Illumination project to shed light on modern artifacts that resonate with us.  

We had to draw five of our own artifacts or objects of importance and make commentary on why they have resonated with us. It made me realize how many artifacts surround us everyday and the emotional tie we carry to them. Artifacts range from cultural findings to meaningful 'nicknacks' sitting on your desk. This assignment brought me back to the Roth quote mentioned before because listening to people comment on their illuminated artifacts revealed something about them.

 citation: stonehenge

citation: France Belleville- wagonized 

[ S T O R I E S ] :

In studio we were assigned a grim. My grim was The Beam. In The Beam a sorcerer tricks a crowd into thinking that a rooster is carrying a beam when really he was carrying a piece of straw. A girl, with newly found wisdom from a four-leaf clover, called him out and the crowd ridiculed him. At that moment he decided he would someday seek revenge on the girl and he did so on her wedding day. The girl was on her way to the chapel but had to cross a swelled stream, so she lifted up her dress and started across. The sorcerer appeared and told the girl that the swelled stream was actually a bunch of blue flax flowers and ridiculed her just as she had done to him. We made an illustration board to show the essence of our story. This is mine::

Throughout my first semester in Iarc alone I have heard "The sum of the parts is greater than the whole" many times.  I think that this concept relays to the word 'story' because each individual aspect and event in the plotline is building up to tell story as a whole.  Outside of related this quote to my opus prompts or to my design processes I try to remember it when I am putting together the pieces of all four of my Iarc classes in order to more deeply understand the concepts that Im learning. 

[ C Y C L E ] :

In Design History we learned about the design cycle. There is actually more than one design cycle. In the image below the first line shows a design that gains immediate popularity and then plateaus off. This would be something that is a classic style. The next illustrates a design that breaks through as a trend then drops in popularity. Later it is picked up as a trend again and like the first plateaus after a while. The third like the second starts off with high popularity-but unlike the first it doesn't stay for long. After it looses its initial popularity it plateaus and later makes another short reoccurrence. The word cycle reminds me of the process of design in the way that the purpose a space is designed evolves and changes to accommodate new uses and styles.

[ M U L T I V I E W ]:

Multiview relates to Midsummer Nights Dream because in the story there are multiple perspectives; the fairies perspective, the different couples perspectives, the actors perspective and that of the parents. 

citation: Midsummer Night's Dream picture

Also in Design Drafting we were given a project called Pat's Project. We were given a restricted amount of material to make a piece of furniture in which Pat ideally had four uses four; a workstation, a table, a seat, and a server. Along with rules of to what scale our model had to be and the amount of material allowed to be used , there was also a rule that we had to have all right angles and the piece of furniture had to be different from every view::multiview.  I really enjoyed the challenge of this project.

 

[ T R A N S L A T I O N S ]:

In Design History we learned about Roland Barthes who said there exist a normally hidden set of rules through which meanings particular to specific social groups are made universal. The concealed meanings of semiotics, ideologies, and signs can all be translated differently by various people. There is an endless array of translations of a piece of art or architecture. There are different translations and ideas of what the manifests of architecture itself are.

 Louis Kahn said "Architecture is what nature can not make." Or is it? ...

 Would a backyard shed be considered a building or a piece of architecture?  

What about compared to a high-style cathedral?

These observations and theories opened my eye to how many different translations there are of architecture and the many aspects of it.

 

[ C O N N E C T I O N S ]

 

Throughout this week of classes the five terms we were given started to fit together more. Most stories have multiple views and translations. There is a story behind everything…stories that are communicated through artifacts.  Artifacts, I realized this week, surround us in our everyday lives and most importantly permeate the history and theory of design. This is all a part of the design process, which is a cycle that repeats and reemerges itself throughout time.