Toon,
The Cooper Hewitt's Design with the Other 90% might be of interest, in particular, Bicycle Modules:
http://designother90.org/cities/solutions/design-africa-bicycle-modules
—M
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Michael Yap
MFA Candidate
Interaction Design
School of Visual Arts (SVA)
web fancifuldevices.com
twitter michaelryap
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On Nov 2, 2011, at 7:39 AM, toon wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> You may remember me form earlier threads, I am a product designer (in my
> last year of my study) and have to think about what I would like to show
> the world at my graduation.
>
> I started out with the concept of happiness and products, you helped me a
> great deal with this. I found out that this (as the concept of ethics was
> about a year ago) is abstract and very hard to translate to the physical
> world.
> I looked at “the motivation of the designer” (for the modernists that was
> to make the world a better place) and “the intention of the designer” (that
> sometimes is different from what happens with the product in the real
> world.)
>
> And from these ideas I came to look at a product (that most take as an end
> point of the design) as an intermediate product, that will find its final
> form with the user.
> Like El Lissitzky said “Every form is the frozen instantaneous picture of a
> process. Thus a work is a stopping place on the road to becoming and is not
> a fixed goal.”
>
> To give a simple illustration, one can take a cup and use it to put flowers
> in, than the cup is not a cup but a vase. So the user can “change” the
> product.
> It is clear in modular systems like LEGO. There the product you buy (the
> physical blocks) are not the end product, the concept of building is.
>
> Does anyone have any other illustrations or theories on this subject.
>
> Thanks for you valuable time.
>
> Toon Welling
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