We are pleased to announce the third installment of our class, this Fall Semester at the Media Lab:
FUTURE CRAFT: Radical Sustainability in Product Design
http://futurecraft.org/
email: futurecraft@media.mit.edu
Fall 2009 G Level course (9 Credits)
Wednesdays, 1-4pm, in room E15-135 (Medialab Cube Conference Room)
Assignments: weekly readings, design projects, web documentation and a final project.
No Prerequisites
“The responsibility for the relationship between industry and culture falls, in the modern world, on the shoulders of design. The product is the mediator between manufacture and the consumer, and its design is the container of the message that is mediated.”- Penny Sparke from Design in Context. Quarto, London, 1987.
Objects are bound to the state of craft: the materials, processes and cultures of production. The skilled practice of making – craft – is shaped as much by technological advancements as by cultural perspective. Future Craft considers how the processes of design and production can be used to reflect new social values and to change dominant cultural practices, addressing design as both a process and a result of a process, influenced by technological developments, the socio-economic constraints of the manufacturing process, and the cultural context that gives rise to the need for objects.
In this third installment of the course, we will take a concentrated approach to sustainability in terms of global, local and personal issues. The objects we make are the channels that connect us with materials, cultures and individuals around the world. Production practices shape communities and politics. Individuals are defined by the objects they have at their disposal. At every level, designers have the power and the responsibility to define not only how to make things, but what things should be made.
This course will outline a future state of craft through a studio-based critical exploration of processes of contemporary craft and emerging themes in design. Each week we will explore the scope of influence of design through reading, discussion and hands-on prototyping of objects – products, furniture, and fashion – to create a discourse reflecting how methods for creation and production link directly to objects as artifacts of culture. Throughout the course we will strive to make new things by uncovering new ways of making. Global thinking will frame craft in terms of supply chain, sustainability, design for ddevelopment and open design processes. We will refer to product ethnography and cultural probes, investigating how our perception, interpretation and expectation of objects is also evolving.
The course will be a mixture of studio design work, both in and out of class, and lectures, readings, discussion and critique. Students will be introduced to a number of fabrication techniques, design processes and new materials, and expected to produce object-scale prototypes. Through a combination of producing objects and engaging in critical reflection, students will be encouraged to develop a design practice which innovates technically in process and materials as well situates their work in the context of contemporary culture and technology. Together with physical practice, students will document and share their projects through on-line social networks and develop virtual identities to engage in open design.
Visit Futurecraft.org for more information about this class and the past two years.
We are pleased to announce the third installment of our class, this Fall Semester at the Media Lab:
FUTURE CRAFT: Radical Sustainability in Product Design
http://futurecraft.org/
email: futurecraft@media.mit.edu
Fall 2009 G Level course (9 Credits)
Wednesdays, 1-4pm, in room E15-135 (Medialab Cube Conference Room)
Assignments: weekly readings, design projects, web documentation and a final project.
No Prerequisites
“The responsibility for the relationship between industry and culture falls, in the modern world, on the shoulders of design. The product is the mediator between manufacture and the consumer, and its design is the container of the message that is mediated.”- Penny Sparke from Design in Context. Quarto, London, 1987.
Objects are bound to the state of craft: the materials, processes and cultures of production. The skilled practice of making – craft – is shaped as much by technological advancements as by cultural perspective. Future Craft considers how the processes of design and production can be used to reflect new social values and to change dominant cultural practices, addressing design as both a process and a result of a process, influenced by technological developments, the socio-economic constraints of the manufacturing process, and the cultural context that gives rise to the need for objects.
In this third installment of the course, we will take a concentrated approach to sustainability in terms of global, local and personal issues. The objects we make are the channels that connect us with materials, cultures and individuals around the world. Production practices shape communities and politics. Individuals are defined by the objects they have at their disposal. At every level, designers have the power and the responsibility to define not only how to make things, but what things should be made.
This course will outline a future state of craft through a studio-based critical exploration of processes of contemporary craft and emerging themes in design. Each week we will explore the scope of influence of design through reading, discussion and hands-on prototyping of objects – products, furniture, and fashion – to create a discourse reflecting how methods for creation and production link directly to objects as artifacts of culture. Throughout the course we will strive to make new things by uncovering new ways of making. Global thinking will frame craft in terms of supply chain, sustainability, design for ddevelopment and open design processes. We will refer to product ethnography and cultural probes, investigating how our perception, interpretation and expectation of objects is also evolving.
The course will be a mixture of studio design work, both in and out of class, and lectures, readings, discussion and critique. Students will be introduced to a number of fabrication techniques, design processes and new materials, and expected to produce object-scale prototypes. Through a combination of producing objects and engaging in critical reflection, students will be encouraged to develop a design practice which innovates technically in process and materials as well situates their work in the context of contemporary culture and technology. Together with physical practice, students will document and share their projects through on-line social networks and develop virtual identities to engage in open design.
Visit Futurecraft.org for more information about this class and the past two years.