11. Implications and applications¶

Implications and Applications Workshops¶

In Laetitia Thomas' 2 day workshop we did a collective crash course in business models. I'd like to walk through some of the tools in the case that they can be applied to some of your own ideas.

The Value Chain activity is divided in to 8 sections:

Design: What is the product/system/service you are creating
Materials: Who or what do your materials impact/support? (mining, farming, procurement...)
Manufacturing: Who, what and how is your design being produced (processing, manufacturing, components)
Distribution: how your product moves in the world (marketing, communications, wholesale, retail, transport)
Use: how the product lives in the world (Users, servicing, maintenance)
Repair & Reconditioning systems to support breakage (component change, after-sale support, spare parts)
Take back logistics: product recovery (waste collection, regulations, transportation)
Next Use: what comes next (re-use and second hand, recyling , energy recovery)

In our example we used produts connected to health design and wearable technology

How can a product shift how we imgagine a system. In my home town for example we have a vare share system Evo which re-imagined car use through sharing economies. The below are a circular list of jumping off points withg which you can consider you idea and how it might transform an industry within the timeframe of 3 years.

Reduce: use resources
Replace: trade a bad habit for a good habit in a design sense
Reuse: the produce, components or packaging
Repair: the produce, components or packaging
Recycle: materials already in existence
Regenerate: ecosystems linked to the valuechain
Re-think: design idea

Describing your ideas based on a "how might we..." prompt this table of questions asks you to rate your question on a scale from 1-5. The resulting score can be an indicator of the efficacy or effectiveness of the idea in the real world from a capitalistic and regenerative perspective.

Many of these board connected more to health design and wearable technology and thus are not directly applicable to my current idea howere are useful tools with which to re-engage as I build forward with my idea around mycelium and pine needles.

As my idea progressed my How-Might-We's shifted to the following:

How might was create systems/channels that amplify/bring presence to the voice of nature?
How might we co-create with nature; a bio-emergent creative process?
How might we create playful opps for human reflection on natural systems?
How might we shift our relationship to time and climate change?

While seemingly unrealted, most of my inital ideation was connected to our experience of time in my forever love of the VOID... so good. I'm going to leave these thoughts here for my own reference should they come up again in my project.

Time only exists in our perception of it

I did a review of past work in the space of ultrapersonalizes products and systems which tended towards more big data and IOT. This time, after my Fabricademy experience I am keen to stay within the same comceptual spaced but to focus more on form than technology; or rather to allow data and technology to create form instead of be such an active voice in the design.

Past ultra personalized product work, ideating into my new direction after fabricademy

Current thinking bent more towards regenerative forms of physical design that may be absent of, but informed by technology. Instead of designing systems with humans, how could I design systems with nature? Very much inspired by Charlotte Mccurdy I started thinking through what systems were relent for me to engage, and how.

Relating, learning and designing through play

Why, What, Who, When, Where?¶

Inter:play explored functional objects within the home that invite a light element of play for adults. Designed for contexts which shift in use and location. The projects leverages an already intimate relationship which has been destroyed through forestry: Pine needules upon forrest floors interacting with Mycelial networks. Textiles and stuctural materials generated from the Pine Tree and mycelium will be explored. The resulting material win inform the final forms and use practices will largely be discovered after materials are selected.

Concept¶

Inter:Play is about rekindling relationships and building back narratives that reconnect people with their own surroundings; an evolving ecology within the home. Furnishings designed to encourage playful engagement while materially replicating relationships found in nature. Much as described in Kate Fletchers, Craft of Use, this project seeks to offer people opportunities to mindfully engage with artifacts in order to encourage a more meaningful material experience. As Robin Wall Kimmerer, Author of Braiding Sweetgrass reminds us, that we are nature and are meant to be in a reciprocal relationships with ecology, derived from the Greek oikos, the word for home.

Inter:Play is a first step in developing a practice that engages directly with ecosystems in flux; working with the excess of imbalance. Within my personal practice I hope to shift perspectives of designing for seasons, or how trend can be responsive to environmental shifts.

As a first iteration of experimentation in this space Inter:Play reconnects mycelial structures with fallen “slash” or the buy product of forestry. In my home, British Columbia, Canada generations of forestry practice have left the land unstable, prone to landslides, flooding and fires. Drought and extreme heat fluctuations are further antagonizing the forests. Reducing biomass created by storms, farming and disease can reduce the spread of forest fires.

Preliminary experimentation will begin with Pine trees; needles and small wood chips with Mycelium. Pine needles in particular make up 20-30% of the mass of a tree and have few if any material uses after felling the tree. Initially using propagated mycelium from commercially available mycelial inoculated wood chips; it is my desire ultimately move toward inoculation using local mushrooms, rebuilding existing relationships. Long term within the system of this design I hope to develop a plug system, wherein mycelial plugs can be re-planted along side seedlings as is standard practice in Canada.

Focusing on Pine as species which has been farmed the brink composing 45% of growing stock in industrial mad-made forests globally, loosing much of its interconnected intelligence, treated by disease without its mycelia and root based support system. Farming practices no longer offer trees the time to develop strong relationships with each other.

Responding to the idea of re-building and instability, Inter:Play proposes modular systems that offer a playful nod to instability, re-building and flexibility through transition. Iterations will explore multiple modes of form generation that push existing modes of production of Mycelial interior objects into more fluid yet structural forms.

Slide show¶

Co-Creators¶

I have some key co-creators I'd like to engage in my reserach process.

Helene Day Fraser: Associate Professor, Emily Carr Univeristy of Art + Design & Researcher with Univeristy of British Columbia Forestry Department

Current research areas and possible parallels to my current ideation space
Possible scientisits to partner with
Industry connections in British Columbia

Kelly Dougal: Tree Planting Lead, PhD Candidate (Mathematics)

Feasiblity of planting mycelial plugs in slash
Feasibilty of harvesting waste material from slash (needles)
Industry connections

References:¶

Relational

Biological

Forestry Statistics

Presentation Feedback¶

Cecilia:

there are a number of forest experts that bridge knowledge between indigenous and current practices in canada - will look for them/ but maybe you know them?
debugging - were they totally dry the pine needles? did you sterilize them in the pressure cooker?
will you leave objects in the forest? if so, will you film their interaction between forest and time and object and everything else?

Anastasia:

too much time spent educating on the problem so missed out on critical "pitch" time for commentators to advide of material substrate.
research documentation can be shared on the personal webpage, this will help with being meticulous in what i share at the end of the project - key points*
Pine needles have specific properties and PH, could you dive into documenting their composition, how they are used, what properties they could have?
From Miro: Tree Rhythms

Angela:

Brazillian company that works and researchs the use of Agro Forest Leftovers, to produce papers and other materials from celulose:instagram
Brazilian artists that work with the trees and their parts after the tree pruning in the cities. this is their instagram

Oscar: "Look at your project from a co-habitation perspective and what new relations will be created between humans and the forest through the objects you are creating."

Rico: "Fascinating! Trees communicate and pass on knowledge! Such an amazing project."

Last update: 2023-01-11