30 September 2019
Documenting materials at the V&A introduced me to a number of unconventional uses of materials- within and outside of the respective ‘material galleries’.
The use of a range of materials like plastics (etched, 3d printed), fibres (japanese rice paper) and ceramics (Wendy Ramshaw x Wedgewood) in jewellery were of particular interest to me. I was also intrigued by the various techniques of adding colour within the glass gallery: lifting canes, stretching canes for miniatures and mosaics, incorporating canes within the transparent molten glass revealed different and interesting visual compositions. The glass gallery also exhibited the works of contemporary artists who had further pushed the boundaries of expression through glass and of the material itself- using contrasting textures, frosting, capturing bubbles, intersecting canes capturing bubbles, weaving glass ‘strings’ etc.
Composites were another category of innovative materials identified, utilising a range of discarded and processed materials towards sustainable resource consumption by the design industry.
Further, examples of sensitive adaptation of excess materials, previously used resources, previously utilised space, as well as the conversion of a prior ethos of space into a new spatial experience; as explained by Graeme Brooker in ‘Superuse’ (Adaptation Strategies for Interior Architecture and Design) makes me want to look at redundant, excess or byproduct materials in a new way, in order to utilize their potential toward more environmentally conscious design.
Notes from reading:
- experiment with overabundance of redundant materials
- recycling and incorporation into new objects
- found objects
- Production waste (cut offs, leftovers, temporary objects);
- Scrapping
- End of life cycle (landfills)
- Harvest map – document document possibilities
- waste needs to be redesignated
- Shihlin Paper mill – interbreeding – Paradise lost in time – retention of ethos of overgrowth of flora and fauna
- New York HighLine – relic of another time – reuse of urban infrastructure – constructing spaces with spare or excess materials – new values – unusual relics, abandoned infrastructure, abandoned monument
What can I reuse/recycle/upcycle/process?
What stories can I tell?
design factory 