As part of SAIC’s Industry Partners Studio led by Dr. Bruce M. Tharp, fourteen students from the Designed Objects program worked under a theme set by Jonathan Olivares to explore contemporary contexts of education and make a series of accessories for Danese Milano. SAIC’s philosophy of a critical and re-imagined approach to design resonated perfectly as Olivares set the premise that established desk accessories have lost their relevance, and urged the class to explore unsolved problems surrounding today’s work activities. During two meetings at SAIC the participants discussed Danese’s particular culture, the products that JODR designed for the brand, the students’ research and their initial prototypes. Danese’s president, Carlotta de Bevilacqua, Olivares and SAIC faculty gave the students feedback on their work as they developed their projects in preparation for this exhibit. The results are surprising, relevant and humorous; a pillow for laptop naps, a tray that saves our keyboards and laptops from destructive coffee spills, and a backpack station, that converts a bag into a piece of furniture. The strength of the students’ prototypes can be assessed in this exhibit by JODR, where they are displayed in a mock dorm room alongside Danese furniture.
Photos Federico Villa
View full entry
- Workshop at ÉCAL in Lausanne, Switzerland
- November 17 – 21 2008
During a one week workshop, ÉCAL’s second year industrial design students were asked to research furniture types that exist on the margins of society and understand their functions within their sociopolitical environment. Thirty students each chose typologies ranging from gun cabinets to portable saunas. A three day research phase was followed by two days of analyzing the problems inherent in the chosen object’s design and its surrounding culture. To prove an understanding of their subject students wrote and sketched a brief for a design that would positively contribute to their object’s role within its environment. Each student contributed 8 pages to a 240-page booklet that summarizes the research and design planning accomplished through the workshop.
In her article on Torino Geodesign in Abitare 483, Lucia Tozzi writes:
Jonathan Olivares decided to concentrate on the waiting-room of the Fratia Association, through which a significant proportion of Turin’s 80,000 resident Romanians pass every day and file applications or gather information. His project is a structure designed to house the waiting-room’s seating while also separating the seating area from the association’s offices, creating greater privacy for both. It looks rather like a sofa intended for the seats themselves – a container that both accommodates and conceals the people who are waiting.
View full entry
This project and exhibit took place in a New York city loft, where I edited the functions of the existing furniture by adding structures that altered the performance of the furniture more in line with how the space was actually used. The models I built were mutations, designed to support individual activities. It was during this workshop that I became uncomfortable with the notion of existing typologies; coffee tables, benches, sofas, beds, they all started to seem functionally vague. The owner of the loft often works on his laptop from bed, enjoys leaning back in his sofa, and while I was there, I found it nice to work at his coffee table but was uncomfortable when I leaned over to write on its surface. The models delivered a specific function, purging any ambiguity from their host furnishings. None of these models were or are intended as products, rather they were exploratory. The total work is best thought of as an exhibit considers the way contemporary behavior is inadequately supported by existing forms of furniture, and offers a hypothetical reconciliation.
Bed computer table
View full entry