Why? How?

When red wine was poured into a glass container and placed in front of a lit torch, the staff members of the Shakespearian Theatre could not have imagined a simpler way of controlling the stage light - furthermore, a simpler way of saving wine. The wine is symbolic of money in the modern day and age. As the amount of money people were willing to pour into their products kept decreasing, industrialization was brought onto scene. As a consequence of industrialization, redundant to say, were the multiple cloned versions of an original. Soon, the term ‘hand-made’ became a synonym to ‘expensive’ while the development of machinery blurred the line between what was authentic and what was not. Despite the many claims arguing otherwise industrialization, in addition to our natural curiosity, had and still continue to push the envelope in the way we think and create.

It is a common knowledge nowadays that the price of a newly introduced Apple product will be lowered to a good amount within months. The time gap between the newly introduced products becoming so common as to have their price tags be reconsidered is a shorter but parallel example to the evolution of chair designs from the mid 19th century till now; the 21st century. As industrial revolution led to the industrialization of almost every product, products started lacking personality and the pride of the owners had started diminishing. Such consequence had lead to the Arts and Crafts movement, and to the creation of Morris & Co. Despite the company’s claims of having their products be all hand-made, the price competition against mass-produced products had later led the company to utilize machineries as support in the creation of their designs and not vice versa. With the acceptance of industrialization into our lives, designer chairs such as the Wassily Chair by Marcel Breuer had started reshaping the standards of mass-produced goods. The Wassily Chair was significant in its contribution to advancing the manufacturing techniques. The use of steel tubing on this chair was revolutionary at the time, which challenged a German steel manufacturing company in manufacturing the chair. The company had perfected in creating the seamless steel tubing for the chair. The challenge had widened the boundaries and made possible and affordable the numerous generations of chair designs that utilized this technique.

Besides the design’s ability to challenge the modern technology, the drive to do so is another element that makes such advancement possible. As tourists stand in awe in front of the intricately carved marble columns of the St. Marks’ Basilica, they are most likely to document the historical architecture with their palm sized digital cameras. The idea of eternity is what has been desired and thrived for because it satisfies the innate human characteristic to want mental and emotional stability – hence the photo albums and history classes. Such desire has brought upon inventions such as the digital camera, but more in tune with the essence of such a need is the invention of the mummy. The first mummy is said to have been done by the Chinchorro Tribe, dating back to 5050 BC. The tribe had mummified all of its members when they had passed away. Their complex mummification ritual involved the deconstruction and reconstruction of the body with less decomposable materials. The ritual included putting on a wig to the dead body. Such ritual is believed to have been developed out of grief, as a means to physically keep the deceased close in physical resemblance, thereby keeping their spirits close. Parallel in ideals to such mummies are the modern day technology of Cryonics. Cryonics is a way of preserving humans and/or animals for the future technology. Preservation is accomplished through freezing of the body. Scientists believe that, although the bodies that are put into the Cryonics tubes are legally defined as dead, their personalities and memories are mostly kept in the cellular structures and chemicals of their brains. By safely freezing this component of the body, when future technology allows, it is believed that once the bodies are melted back into life, they will be the same person that were frozen to death in the past. Although some descendent generations of the deceased will not be able to meet their frozen loved ones till their bodies are defrosted, the idea that the lives of their loved ones are put on hold, not dead, are what gives them hope and what strengthen their desire to further push technology.

The pure element to design - our need of definite answers - is what I try to incorporate in my design ideas. Just as our interests and needs in comfort of having our loved ones close by had enhanced our technology of preserving the deceased, I believe that anything can be possible with the great interest of the mass because money tends to flow towards the interest of the public. This does not mean that I wish to work at an electronics firm designing smaller and prettier phones every month. My design goal is to take the Wassily Chair as an example. Functionalism states that products should be “well adapted to their purpose; bare of ornament; standardized; machine-made, and reasonably priced; and expressive of their structure and materials.” The Wassily Chair definitely meets all the requirements of a functionalist’s standards except for the “reasonable price”. Although the Wassily Chair maybe not affordable, but it definitely had advanced the technology which then allowed many other new designs affordable to the public. The Wassily Chair, in a way, is a design proposal. It shows up on scene and in accordance to the general public’s reaction, the technology that surrounds the creation of the chair becomes more and more advance, thereby making it easier and more affordable to mass produce the design. There are many things in our lives that can use this power. How is it that cell phones that were the size of a brick had become a touch screen pad the size of our palms within the past decade when medical support in third world nations or simply a cure for many illnesses has still not been found? I hope to design ideas that can both generate the interest and therefore generate a flow of funding and new generations of ideas and products to bring the technology in important fields up to date.

Chairs

Functionalism, according to George Marcus, is “the notion that objects made to be used should be simple, honest, and direct; well adapted to their purpose; bare of ornament; standardized; machine-made, and reasonably priced; and expressive of their structure and materials.” Many opposed this view and movements such as the Arts and Crafts had created a market for its separated genre. Starting with the Sussex chair, this timeline analyzes the pathway the functionalism develops on.Although the Morris and Co. decided to create home decors that both the makers and the purchaser could be proud of, their goal was over-shadowed by other products that were competing with lower costs.




1864: Ford Madox
Sussex

As a response to the industrialization
of everyday goods, Morris and Co.
took their part in the Arts & Crafts
movement by producting hand crafted
home decors including chairs. Ironically,
though, the chairs were only aordable
to the wealthy class, and some machinery
was used in producing textiles.

1925: Marcel Breuer
Wassily, Model No. B3

Design has many great functions and
one of them is to push the limits on
manufacturing techniques. The use of
steel tubing on this chair was revolutionary.
With a German steel manufacturer’s perfection
in creating a seamless steel tubing was the
creation of the Wassily chair that was
simply mass-producible. The Wassily chair
opened up a new trend in chair designs
and the use of steel tubing.

1965: Willie Landels
Throw-away

Joining the 60s trend of disposable
yet fashionable goods was the
Throw-away chair. Design to be
easily manufactured, the frameless
and simple polyurethane was
inexpensive. The polyurethane was
covered in “wet-look” vinyl which
was the trend at the time.

1972: Frank Gehry
Wiggle Chair

Initially designed to be a low-cost piece, the
popularity of the design of the chair bumped
up the price tag to an unaordable price tag.
The 60 layer of corrugated cardboard cut-outs
can hold up to thousands of lbs. Also, the use
of recycled corrugated carboard adds a great
deal to its popularity.

2004: Emiliano Godoy
Knit Chair

Dealing with the more recent market demand,
the Knit Chair strives to solve multiple design
problems at once. Built with all organic, FSC
certified pieces of wooden panels and 100%
cotton to hold the pieces together, the chair
is known to be comfortable as well. This chair’s
rigid but soft structure bends just enough for
maximum physical comfort, and its choice in
materials that are all biodegradable allows
maximum comfort for your conscience as well.

The machine made furniture proved effective in cost but could not prove itself too aesthetically pleasing. Combining both the cost effectiveness and aesthetics can be found in the Wassily chair by Marcel Breuer. This chair was revolutionary in its advancement in manufacturing techniques. This chair was easily mass-producible and aesthetically pleasing. Pushing the boundaries of manufacturability, the design was simple enough to be mass-produced, and designed to be ornamented in its own style. Although it can be argued that the industrialization had limited the designs of products, it can also be said that the industrialization paved a new pathway for a trend towards new forms and aesthetics. Also, the frameless polyurethane couch, Throw-Away chair by Willie Landels, was developed on the basis that it was easily manufactured, but the simplicity had taken off any unnecessary ornaments but just the form reflecting its function as a sitting device. If anything ornate, the chair’s cover was “wet-look” vinyl, which reflects the trend of the time. With the trend of disposable goods at the time, pollution had become a concern. As a response to such a problem, sustainability or eco design had been added to the list of requirements of a functionalistic design. Frank Gehry’s Wiggle chair is a great example. Made up of recycled cardboard was a form that could withhold thousands of pounds. More recent example of such a trend is the all-organic Knit chair by Emiliano Godoy. This chair is biodegradable and amazingly comfortable as well because of its rigid, but subtly forgiving form of the chair.

Lighting

Colonoscope

A fiber optic video on a thin, flexible tube.
Colonoscope is used during a colonoscopy.
Pictures of the patient’s colon and rectum
can be taken.





















Surgical Theatre Light

Halogen light used in operating rooms.
The multi angled beams allow shadow-
lesslight to cast on a designated area.

















Magnifying Light

Used by many different professions,
the magnifying light allows the user to
not only view a certain area more up
close, but also more brightly and therefore
precisely. Afluorescent ring bulb surrounds
the magnifying lense.

Dentist Light

Designed so that the light beam is
reflectedinto a narrow beam which
allows the doctorto focus the light on
the oral cavity more efficiently.
























Diagnostic Light

Halogen light used for basic
examinationsof the patient’s body.

Bringing Back the Past

The timeline Bringing Back the Past examines the different technologies and purposes of mummification in the course of time. The first mummification is believed to have started out of religious and spiritual reasons by the Chinchorro Tribe. Moving forward from spiritual reasons to reasons such as memory and medical technology was allowed by modern public knowledge and less religious beliefs. Recent technology has leaned towards the way of catering to the more emotional and materialistic consumers. It has also leaned towards to cater to the curiosity of the future; Cryonics. From contending the spirits to reviving the dead loved ones, the technology of preserving the dead keeps running on the demand for such services by the living.

Chinchorro Mummies

Contrary to popular belief, the first mummies were not mummified by the Egyptians. In fact the oldest and intentionally preserved body dates back to 5050 BC by the Chinchorro tribe. The tribe inhabited the northern coast, now known as Chile, mainly dieting on seafood. The ‘Black Mummies’ were one of the types of mummies created by this tribe, in which the mummification process involved disassembling the body and removing the skin, the head, and the limbs. The corpse then was fleshed, and the internal organs were removed in order to prevent the corpse from decaying. Then, the body was reconstructed with vegetable fibres or animal hair, twigs or branches as the spine and the limbs. The skin was replaced with that of a sea lion’s or a pelican’s. Finally, the body was covered with ash paste and clay, which then was painted with black manganese.


Buddhist Mummies of Japan

First done by a Japanese Buddhist priest named Kuukai, self mummification became almost religious among the Japanese monks dating back to over a thousand years ago. Kukkai, the founder of the Shingon sect of Buddhism, went through three steps in order to achieve this self-mummification process. The first step of the process was to remove most of the body fat, which decomposes fast after death. In order to do so, the priest ate nothing but nuts and seeds, and subjected himself in enduring physical hardships. After a thousand days of such diet, the priest then restricted his diet to small portions of barks and roots of pine trees. This process, again endured for another thousand days, was performed as a means to eliminate bodily fluids to minimize the changes of decaying after death. Towards the end of the latter thousand days, the priest also started drinking tea made from the sap of the Urushi tree. Drinking this tea, which was poisonous, resulted in frequent vomiting, urination, and sweating, which further eliminated bodily fluids. Also, this process would later kill any maggots or insects that tried to eat the corpse of the priest. In the final step, the priest went into a glass tube, where he sat until his death.

Plastination

Plastination involves replacing water and lipid tissues with curable polymers. Plastination uses polyester-copolymer, silicone ...etc, as curable polymers. In the first step, the body is embalmed. First, the body is embalmed in formaldehyde solution. Then, the body is bathed in acetone which replaces the water of the cells. Then, the body is moved and put into a bath of liquid polymer. In this process, the acetone is boiled. As acetone boils it leaves the cell as it draws the liquid polymer to replace itself in the cell. The liquid polymer is then cured with gas, heat, or ultraviolet light which hardens the plastic. Then, plastinated, the bodies can be posed in different poses. Such technology dates back to November 1978, when Dr. Funther von Hagens proposed such idea and applied for a patent for this technology.

Cloning

Bernann Mckinney spent $50,000 for clones of Booger – her pet dog. Scientists at Seoul National University made this possible. Scientists at the university took skin cells from Booger’s ear tissue before the dog died, and used the skin cells to create embryos. The embryos were then implanted into female dogs, which then after three months, five clones of Booger were born. Professor Lee Byeong-chun took part in this project. He had prior experience in cloning a dog, his first experience being the cloning of Snuppy- the first dog to be cloned - in 2005.

Cryonics

Cryonics is a way of preserving humans and/or animals for the future technology. When either humans or animals cannot live on the limitations on modern medical technology, the legally deceased body is kept in a tube at a temperature of -321 °F. With hopes that the future medical technology advancement will allow life back into the currently frozen bodies.