At the moment I’m working on two projects: the Yamaha project and the Indecisive Furniture project.
The Yamaha brief was to design an object or device to transform a music listener into a player. I am working on 2 products for this brief: the sound stick and music ball.
The sound stick is a tactile MIDI controller that uses the action of bending and hitting into the air to produce a note on an imaginary keyboard. The music ball is in a 2nd prototype stage and is a Bluetooth controller for computer based music production software. By using tilt switches, sounds can be played by rotating the ball around its central point. Manipulating the ball by hand can play sounds or rolling the ball in a straight line can create a repetitive beat. Adding ‘spin’ can warp this beat.
The aim of the Indecisive Furniture project is to design furniture whose aesthetic qualities can be changed through a simple reconfiguration. Current work has concentrated on the design of tables that fold completely flat and can be reversed. The consequence of achieving the latter is that a different style of tabletop can be displayed depending on which way the table is unfolded. Further development will look at designing chairs and stools and perhaps benches that work on the same principle.
Other projects for this term:
Concrete Furniture – May be an entry into the British Cement Association & The Concrete Centre Awards 2007. I have been experimenting with concrete composites and the possibilities of casting slender elements.
Honest products – Design and owners of designed objects have a complicated relationship. This project looks at whether objects can be designed to reflect the inherent imperfections in humans and therefore be a more truthful representation of ideals, hopes and dreams.