Design Revolution Panel Discussion + Book Party

Thursday, March 11 Events

Design Revolution: Join the Debate Panel Discussion
6:30pm | Falvey Hall

Exploring Materials: Creative Design for Everyday Objects, Book Party
Leidy Atrium and Falvey Hall, Brown Center, MICA, 1301 Mt. Royal Ave 21217
5:30-6:30

Design Revolution: Join the Debate Panel Discussion
6:30pm | Falvey Hall

This free panel is a part of the Design Revolution Road Show, an exhibition installed inside a 1972 Airstream trailer that presents products from Pilloton’s new book Design Revolution: 100 Products that Empower People, written by Pilloton.

Panelists: Emily Pilloton and Matthew Miller of Project H Design, a non-profit dedicated to bringing product design to those who need it most; John Bielenberg, founderof Project M, an immersion program that inspires young designers, writers, and photographers to do work that can make a difference; and Julie Lasky, editor of Design Observer’s Change Observer section, which covers socially aware design. Moderator: Architecture/design writer Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson.

Exploring Materials: Creative Design for Everyday Objects, Book Party
Ina Alesina and Ellen Lupton

Here are few words about the Book:
Exploring Materials focuses on how product designers can use physical forms and materials in a direct, active, hands-on way. Sketching ideas with a pencil or rendering them with computer software are useful experiences, but there is no substitute for confronting physical materials in the flesh. Foam, mesh, wood, plastic, and wire each have behaviors and properties that suggest different types of structure, surface, and connection. In place of the abstraction of pure volumes or the whimsy of “virtual” objects, this book encourages designers to make and test real objects in a studio environment.

Materials are like words. The richer your design vocabulary, the more solutions you can see and express. There are no good or bad materials. Each one has its place, consequences, and cost. Understanding materials is essential to design. Some designers come to the profession with a commonsense knowledge of materials, while others have only thought about their decorative properties. Use this book to begin looking at materials with new eyes. Ignore what you already know, and find out how you can coax cardboard, foam, cloth, metal, or rope into surprising structures with valuable functions.

At the core of the book is a visual glossary of thirty-four materials, organized both to inspire and to inform. Although most of these materials are commonplace (rather than “smart” substances or exotic mutants), each is packed with potential ideas. This section presents everyday uses of the materials, pointing out the special ways each one functions as a structure, surface, fastener, and more. Also featured are experimental uses of these forms and substances, showing how designers from around the world have exploited their characteristics in inventive ways. The book concludes with a section on making it real, moving beyond the prototype to create a product that can be manufactured and marketed.

Exploring Materials speaks to a cultural shift in the design world. Many designers are thinking critically and creatively about materials—about where they come from, how they function, and where they end up at the end of a product’s life cycle. There is growing interest across society in physically making things and thus directly engaging with objects and the environment. The revitalization of craft has helped revitalize design. Exploring Materials embraces this new wave of thinking and making.