Chair with Canopy

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Getting to crunch time

Working in conjunction with Chad Cross

Rolling on Carpet

When thinking of plasticity, we began thinking more about the possibility for multiple uses of an object without altering its state. This differs from elasticity, which we believe refers to an object/material’s ability to be molded into new forms and shapes, altering its initial structural state. We looked at one of the largest amounts of plastic waste, carpet, and started to think of news ways to use this everyday object. With 5 billion pounds of carpet thrown out per year, there is a lot of material that is available to be up-cycled. Carpet is walked on everyday, lining the floors of spaces with various uses; it is not common to see carpet being used as a structural material to sit on. Our goal is to use post-consumer carpet, rolled to various lengths, and interlocked to create functional plastic artifacts –
We created a system in which carpet samples of the same size were rolled to various lengths and tightness (3 lengths, 3 levels of tightness). By rolling the carpet in specific amounts, we allow ourselves the use of a stabilizing structural component as well as the original flat state of the carpet. The interwoven “tails” of the carpet rolls and the stacking of the rolls themselves (strategically placed in an ergonomic manner) allowed us to create a comfortable surface.

The only major case study in which some of our ideas are derived from is the Lucy House by Rural Studio.

The Post-fabulous Carpetwall

My partner Chad and I have begun working on developing a systematic way of cutting the post consumer carpet. We are using a similar ideology that we looked at in the found object life-forms that we created earlier in studio. By creating a systemic way of cutting the carpet, similarly to systemically cutting the toy car or plastic fork, we began to look into the assembly of a carpet wall. Bellow are some images of what we have created thus far:

NYC trip

On the dates of March 17th and 18th, the studio took a trip down to NYC and look at a number of galleries. During the trip we saw the Material ConneXions library as well as Aurora Robson's gallery exhibition in Chelsea NYC. While down in Chelsea, we visited a number of art galleries displaying everything from sculpture, paintings, photography and the comic strip called The Book of Genesis being on display. Overall the two days in the city allowed us to have access to very interesting projects related to plastic and current architectural buildings. To be able to see Dr. Joachim's building in Brooklyn was a definite eye opening experience. It demonstrated the possibilities that exist within a city like New York.

Relating to the whole idea of plastic that we are working on, I just recently stumbled across a website that had to do with the reuse of post consumer plastic/garbage. http://www.inhabitat.com/2010/03/20/reclaimed-garbage-transformed-into-unique-sculptures/ as well as another using beer cans to make a very elegant sculpture: http://www.inhabitat.com/2010/03/20/reclaimed-garbage-transformed-into-unique-sculptures/ .

Enjoy.

Really interesting video

I just stumbled upon this video that really relates to our topic we are looking at in studio. This image of the ocean filled with plastic is a vast exaggeration of the garbage patch in the ocean that exists already exists. I think that it does a good job of getting an idea across of how bad plastic can potentially be.

Enjoy

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/03/psa-shows-life-in-a-sea-of-plastic.php

It has been a while since my last post but a lot of progress has been made concerning the research behind the impacts and uses of plastic. I have developed a number of questions dealing with the use and disposal of different types of post consumer plastics. Some of the things I have looked into are dealing with carpet and how much is wasted per year. Surprisingly, it is over 5 billion pounds of carpet that is thrown out each year. That is a lot more then I had expected plus the fact that 60% of that is for replacement. Where does all that carpet go? Landfills? Create fuel? Rural studio, in Alabama, used carpet to create walls of a house. When I saw this, I thought of it as a step in the right direction and started to look into ways to automatize the process.

Presentation of our process so far for the Plastic Nation studio on Monday. Should be interesting.

First Post

Here is the first post on the blog. Considering my current interest and topic of study, I have found an article which is very interesting by David Byrne. David Byrne is an musician from the band Talking Heads and is also a designer. He has created some interesting pieces of art throughout the years and this article caught my eye. It deals with the idea of a possible perfect city based upon the opinion of Byrne himself.
Here is the link,
Enjoy.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203440104574403293064136098.html