Check out the awesome fold-some results of the New York-based design and prototyping workshop, Material Intelligence, held during the week of August 16-20. The workshop was conceived through a collaboration between Studio Mode/modeLab and Tietz-Baccon.
Interested in attending an upcoming modeLab workshop? Get updates on their website.
Material Intelligence Workshop
Brief:
The relationship between the designed object and the forces surrounding that object are always present, perceivable, and tactile. These forces span, among others, material, fabrication, economic, cultural, as well as political domains. In this manner, the object can be thought of as simultaneously existing within a charged field of pressures while adding its own charge back into the field. Contemporary tools (digital fabrication) and technology (associative environments) provide a strategic means for navigating the multitude of forces at play, while the prototype serves as the activating link between material research and design innovation.
Methodology:
This workshop progressed through a series of focused strategies beginning with material testing, followed by the development of prototypes, and arriving at aggregations of a single topological type. Each prototype was created by simple operations, undertaken through a specific disposition, and evaluated for performative potentials. All assemblies were designed in an associative environment (Grasshopper) and iteratively tested utilizing digital fabrication equipment (CNC 3-Axis Mill and CNC High-Force Cutter). The workshop concluded with a reception that exhibited design prototypes and full scale assemblies built by participants over the course of five days.
About Studio Mode/modeLab:
Studio Mode/modeLab is a Brooklyn-based design studio and research collective founded by Ronnie Parsons and Gil Akos. As a studio committed to design as a form of applied research, Mode engages in practices that have a requisite and deep connection to material and the processes by which it is formed and informed.
“While we are interested in intense iterative design processes, we believe the evolution and contextualization of these procedures in a broader social and cultural domain is both our primary objective and the means for embedding interest and significance into design.”
All images courtesy of Studio Mode and Adam Elstein
