Chatter

Patience grasshoppers.

kerrydesign — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 16:08:07 -0500

The People’s choice is in the process of being decided. Everything we presented at the ICFF was so well received, even the designs we didn’t fabricate and just displayed got a great response. I know…I know …I get the irony - though we can fabricate quickly, the administration side of things take a bit longer. We’ll be announcing the people’s choice design in an email to all citizens by the end of the month.
In the meantime…please review the great feedback we’ve gotten so far.

http://www.core77.com/gallery/photos_search.asp?album_id=61&context_id=1...

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/05/design-democracy-at-icff.php

http://mocoloco.com/archives/005492.php

http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/26/view/2946/new-york-design-week-2...

DD08 Update

kerrydesign — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 12:14:47 -0500

Thank you to everyone who has participated this far in the Design Democracy. Our industry professionals were impressed with the designs and we started with a pool of over 100 entries. We narrowed them down to a final group of 18, and then got into some serious design debates. We finally landed on 5 designs that we’re in the process of reviewing and fabricating to showcase at the ICFF. We chose designs that we believe embody the main principles of mass customization. We’ll post images of these designs on the site once they’re done.

Every design submitted on this site will be visually represented in our booth at the ICFF. This website will continue to live on and we’d like to make more designs from the site. We believe there is a demand for this type of forum and manufacturing. It’s challenging sometimes to find a balance between design and ideology, and this experience has shown us they can co exist beautifully. We want the 2008 effort to continue into Design Democracy 09, with added interaction features.

To all of our citizens, please continue to submit designs and participate in DD08. And if you’re in New York, May 17-20 come visit us in person at the ICFF, booth 1733.

People's Choice Designs!

kerrydesign — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 15:22:14 -0500

Thank you everyone for submitting by the March 21st deadline. We are very pleased with the results. All designs submitted before the deadline are being considered for prototyping and showcasing at the 2008 ICFF. We'll have announcements on who/what those designs will be soon.

THE PEOPLE CHOICE DESIGN is still in play until the end of the ICFF in May. We will visually represent every design submitted on this site in our booth at the ICFF. The vote tally from the show and website will help choose the People Choice designs that Context Furniture MFG will add as part of their regular catalog offering.

To all the citizens out there, thank you for participation and keep up the good work.

Router Aesthetics for Digital Carpenters

ScottKlinker — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 20:17:16 -0500

Few of the submissions so far take full advantage of digi-fab techniques to push the possibilities of new aesthetics.
Have a look here for inspiration:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/digitalfabrication/pool/show/with/232688065...

Three Points on Design by Scott Klinker

ScottKlinker — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 18:22:49 -0600

While this site offers a lot of technical advice about MassC, I’d like to suggest some design criteria to think about. Any good design these days must suggest a coherent story. The best way to assure this is to have the design’s context, form and technique supporting each other and moving in the same direction.

Context: Lifestyle and Typology
There are millions, yes millions, of chair and table designs in the world, so get very specific about why yours is innovative. Place it into a specific lifestyle attitude or interior design trend (Bohemian Modern? Live/Work needs? Flexible Use?) Also get specific about it’s type as per the needs of interior design specifiers. While ‘dining chair’ may sound like a solid type, there are actually many sub-types: armless, armchair, high-back, low-back, upholstered, non-upholstered, etc., each with it’s own set of problems. Have a look at www.architonic.com to explore the product category, so that you can find a strategic space to innovate.

Form: Composition and Beauty
Proportion is one of the most important elements of furniture design. While there are some classic rules and proportioning systems, like the ‘golden section’, real refinement comes from iteration and looking critically at the composition. Refined form always takes time. Make physical models to check your designs. The computer is an amazing tool for visualization, but often lies about proportion. As you study furniture structure, you will recognize many recurring structural needs within a chair design. Resolving the structure (engineering) with a pleasing composition (design) is the true ‘art’ of making furniture.

Technique: Inventive Use of Materials and Processes
An obvious opportunity with Digital Fabrication is to explore forms that were not possible before. What about your design pushes the techniques to deliver a form language that we haven’t seen before? Could your design be made without digital fabrication? Are you pushing the materials to perform in a unique way?

For the Truss chairs here my goals were simple – to translate the most archetypal wooden chair into an honest digi-fab language. The double-sided laminate and raw, cut edge gave it a very graphic look. The final composition tries to blend the language of digital with a rustic archetype. The final pieces are rugged enough for a contract market, but priced for a residential market. We worked hard to conceal all hardware and make it easy to assemble. My design is an early 'baby step' into digi-fab. I assume you all will advance the discussion with greater sophistication!

how designs evolve with Mass C

kerrydesign — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 10:23:44 -0600

A good architect client of ours has always used the flexibility of mass customization to suit her needs. We extended the Narrative Armchair into a settee for a contract job, and continue to sell this custom version to her and her clients. Recently she contacted us with a great opportunity, she loved The Truss Collection designed by Scott Klinker, but wanted to use it for indoor contract eating applications. Could we customize the A-Frame design into a Picnic table design with the bench seats attached? Of course we could, this is exactly what we want to do! Scott tackled the design with his usual balance of wit and sophistication, and the results are some of our favorite pieces to date. We did two versions, an adult and a kid’s version, and we’ll be adding them to our standard offerings in the future. This is a perfect example of how mass customization works to everyone’s benefit: the customer, the designer and the fabricator. The job shipped packed flat on pallets and the install team will be assembling them on site. This is nice and economical since shipping pre-assembled and blanket wrapped would have required a dedicated truck. I can’t wait for the in-situ photos. I’ll post them here as soon as we get them.

Happy Valentines Day!

-k.

Simple table base with painted top.

brycemoore — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 09:27:01 -0600

This post illustrates some of the nesting ideas and concepts we’ve outlined in the curriculum area of the site. This is a rendering of simple three-leg table I made using Google Sketch-up. The joints have been configured so that the parts can easily be cut using a flatbed cnc router. The table base parts can easily nested within a single piece of hardwood. Often times, these types of production parts are machined from the top or the bottom of the individual parts. This means that the parts do not need to be flipped for additional machining. The detail illustration here shows how the center of the table base comes together after machining. If these parts were actually going to be made we would also add some small diameter holes within the joints themselves so that the parts would register nicely during fabrication. Additionally we would also perform machining to register where exactly the legs and the base would meet and determine a joint structure. This could be accomplished in a variety of different ways, dowel and glue, hardware, or a floating mortise for connection. This concept can be used to create tables, seating, and just about any object I can think of. The aesthetics are also limitless the images here a simple straightforward geometries but the potential for modification is limited only by imagination. The details within the connections themselves also has tremendous design possibilities. In future posts we will illustrate the different possibilities that exist for these connections.

Best,

Bryce

Hello, Welcome & MC Escher.

kerrydesign — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 20:01:33 -0600

Hello citizens. Thank you so much for taking the time and believing in the Design Democracy. We really think this effort will help designers, consumers and fabricators embrace mass customization and will make a significant difference for the better in years to come.
I'd also like to say thanks to all our great industry professionals for the taking the time to be part of this effort. I'm sure they all will have great insights to add to the conversation.

We were talking to some students last week, and the issue of maximizing yield on panel type production came up. Currently we try to nest parts as close together in order to get the most out of our production. The first image below is an example of the Truss Kids parts, designed by Scott Klinker, on a 5 x 5 panel.
What I've been dying to try is to make the positive parts be equally as important and usable as the negative parts. Of course MC Escher immediately comes to mind.

Check out more of Escher's work at http://www.mcescher.com/

The parts could be part of the same object, or even a separate items or product. During the discussion ideas for floors, divider screens and wall coverings were suggested. In 3D space the problem becomes a little more challenging.

Stay tuned; tomorrow Bryce is going to upload a great table base example cut from
6" wide piece of hardwood.

Be Kind, and thanks for stopping by.
Kerry Moore