Nature and Tools as Teachers

The purpose of this project was to look at design as a process. I saw it as a great approach to almost any project, and an excellent way to get "unstuck" when the ideas just won't flow.
Our end product was a 3-D architectural statement (although we didn't know this was our destination until the very end!). We started by making naturalist drawings of produce, and then abstracted patterns from them. Next we imagined the effects of using a tool on our patterns, dragging, squeezing, slicing, or pulling them. We then began creating a series of 3D expressions from the tool action drawings. In the final step, we used the 3D iterations to make an architectural statement.

By the end of the project our architectural statement was a long way from a piece of fruit or a vegetable. However, it's clear from that without going through the entire process we would not have come up with the very interesting range of creative, innovative architectural statements in the class.

I really enjoyed the process and will add it to my "bag of tricks" for jump starting projects in the future.

Here are my drawings, 3Ds, and architectural statements, and the presentation board of our lovely and talented group, Ingenue.

1. Naturalistic drawings of a red pepper. All of our drawings were 6" x 6" in grayscale. I did 3 drawings of the whole pepper and then a series of interiors (of course!).


































2. Abstract drawings. I liked the seeds of the pepper and the sensual, sweeping curve at the bottom. These inspired my abstract patterns.







3. Tool action. I ran the abstract patterns through a pasta (vermicelli) maker, and came up with these drawings.








3. A side trip for Haiku.
We added poetry and collage to the process. Much fun! The collage expresses a memory of vibrancy and warmth amid the cold, gray sameness of winter (all 3 days of it this year!).

Sleet ices windows.
On the counter, sweet peppers
Hold last summer's heat.

4. 3D expressions. We were limited to grayscale paper for these models. My model got rained on so no pics. :(

5. Architectural statements. For these we could use grayscale with one color. I used the same gray and red that I used in my Haiku/collage. My first iteration was the "Fortress of Gloom" and looked like a group of unfriendly skyscrapers. For the final iteration, I deconstructed it, using cut out rectangles. I reduced the amount of red, and used a translucent vellum to allow light to pass through. I used a variety of line weights and 3 levels of scale. The result was a space that lets users interact with inside/outside and with a sense of being larger/smaller within a space. I imagine it as an outside structure for contemplation. (Same pics problem as above. :(

6. The Ingenue boards. Ingenue is Liz Browne, Jessica Crews, Tiffany Graber, and moi. Details of our Boards: Structure: 4 triptychs. Color: Light blue, chocolate brown, ivory. Font: Olive oil. Shelves: balsa.