1.Plaster module
To conclude, having tried several material, we found that all of them are inelastic material, except silicone module. Namely, only silicone can be bended easily. However, silicone is too expensive to be used for producing template. Even if it is elastic, It is fragile and easily shattering. Finally, we find a ideal material for our usage--PVC. There are several kinds of PVC, also, and we choose the most common kind of PVC as our main source.
Ni (group project) 2013-2014
2014 YODEX Bronze Award
INTRODUCTION
CONCEPT
"Form follows function" is a principle associated with modernist architecture and industrial design in the 20th century. The principle is that the shape of a building or object should be primarily based upon its intended function or purpose. After the meeting people's fundamental needs, basic materials cannot satisfy people anymore. People start to focus on a more lofty and sophisticated level of life. To meet these needs, crafters developed a kind of product which combines both aesthetics and functionality. This product demonstrates not only the spirit of the designer, but it also represents its usability in everyday life.
Usually, cement is treated as a “cold” material. In the modern era, thousands of pieces of cement furniture are made by cast pouring. This repeated copying means thousands of items are identical. This phenomenon is an analogy to the relationship of modern people with one another. Modern people usually do not have too much connection with each other, and when they have it, the interaction between them is usually shallow, as they have the same basic conversation with different people.
“Ni” is the project we built to address this problem. Although the design itself cannot resolve this kind of problem, instead it plays the role of documenting this issue. Throughout this process, “design” brings these societal problems onto the surface, and lets those who have enough ability solve the problems.
RESEARCH&EXPERMENT
Material
When people think about the value of an object, the decision is determined by their personal tastes, particularly regarding the visual aesthetic and texture. When we design a product, we must include this phenomenon in our considerations. Besides the functionality, people's visual and tactile preferences are two important elements which we must incorporate into a product.
Originally, we combined the non-organic material—cement together with organic material—wood in order to achieve our goal: Blending “Feeling and Passion” into furniture. When sitting on this cement furniture or use it as a table, users would smell the fragrance from the wooden material, at the same time, the solid foundation of non-organic provides users the foundation of safety. This combination, without doubt, is a novel collection of modern furniture which let users interact with furniture, in the spiritual aspect. We did several experiments to find the optimal solution
To conclude, we decided to use concrete, white glue, and glass fiber as our main material of Ni.
Casting template
1.Plaster module
one time module. Although it cannot be reused, the price of it is really economic even if we redo the works dozens of time.
2.Silicone module
More expensive than plaster module, but it can be reused.
3.P.V.C.
PVC is an abbreviation of PolyVinyl Chloride, which is a plastic material that is used for many purposes, including clothes or shoes or even chairs.
To conclude, having tried several materials, we found that all of them are inelastic material, except silicone module. Namely, only silicone can be bent easily. However, silicone is too expensive to be used for producing a template. Even if it is elastic, It is fragile and easily shattering. Finally, we find an ideal material for our usage--PVC. There are several kinds of PVC, also, and we choose the most common kind of PVC as our main source.
DESIGN
Sketch
Module Design
STEP 1
STEP 2
STEP 3
STEP 4
STEP 5
1. Using the idea of “Wrapping design” to display our product. The first step of production ing it is to flatten the 3D object.
2. Carving the PVC board to the designed pattern. The flatten pattern is the product of Step 1step 1
3. Fastening the side of the PVC board using super glue
4. Completing The template of our cast is complete!
5. Physically bending Using all of our limbs to bend the PVC board
PROCESS
1. Expanding the PVC template to position
This is the first process to cast model. We have to find the “exactly” horizontal surface to expand our PVC board. If the floor is not exactly smooth and horizontal, our product would result in a leaky shape. The aesthetic is not the only aspect we cared about, the functionality is our main concern, also. Again, if the expansion surface contains flaws, our product would not able to tolerate strong power, and it would crash eventually. Therefore, in this step, we negotiate with wooden craft factory, and borrow their factory to produce the exact horizon surface for our PVC template.
2. Pour concrete into the PVC model and leave it for several hours
After finding the ideal position to put our PVC board, the second procedure is to pour cement into the PVC model and waiting for the concretization. Before pouring the jam-like concrete, we have to configure the environment for the best result. The context of it can be determined by lots of factors, including temperature, humidity, and the most important thing, the interference. For temperature and humidity, we can handle both of them in the room which contains an air-conditioner. For an appropriate temperature, we have to ensure that the temperature in our environment of processing is below the 23 Celsius but higher than 18 Celsius. The interference parts, however, is determined by our luck. In the factory, there are thousands of possible interference, such as vibration of the machine. To minimize these kinds of interference, we choose to pour this model during the midnight, to prevent working with lots of machines simultaneously. After configured the environment into ideal status, it’s time to leave it alone and concretization.
The third of this project is to bend our model at the correct time and correct angle. After configuring the context into correct status, we have to wait for 3 hours approximately for half-forming the model. If the waiting time is too long, the model might be too concrete to be bent, if the waiting time is too short, the cement might be too liquid-like and therefore fail to produce the mode. For the best quality of our product, we choose 3 hours to be the waiting time.
Here comes the bending process. Bending is the most important part of this part. The bending process required 4 people to participate into. Each person must handle the legs correctly and bend into correct angle. Any absence of a group member might result in the failure of this product. After we bent the concrete model in a correct angle, we used the stick to stabilize our furniture. By binding sticks and legs of our product together, and leave it for another 4 hours to create our robust furniture.
3. Bend the half-forming concrete model into designate angle
4. Detach PVC template from the cement model
The final step of producing our product. After waiting for more than 4 hours, we could detach the PVC board from our model. When removing the PVC template from the concrete product, we must remove them in the specific order and angle. If not, we might hurt the margin of our product and therefore produce a blemished product.
However, here is not the end of the story. If we wrongly calculate the time of the previous procedure, we might get a furniture with crack. The cracky furniture cannot be used. Once we stress force on the imperfect furniture, the furniture might crash from the crack.
5. Finalize the product
The final step of the work. After complete all of the previous step, all we have to do is to polish the surface of our furniture. The surface of the crude-version furniture is undesirable. Even if it does not contains any crack or flaws, the textile of it is too rough to be used as furniture. We polished the surface using sandpaper and smooth down every angle of our product.
The following videos are the video we recorded. The content of these videos is corresponding to step 2, 3, 4, 5.
EXHIBITION & AWARD
2014 YODEX Bronze Award
YODEX (Young Designers' Exhibition) is the largest design exhibition especially oriented to students in Asia. It has been the 37th International Young Designers’ Exhibition (YODEX) since 1982. The competition of YODEX is extremely harsh because the total number of participants in the competition is more than ten thousand. The total number of competitor did not prevent our project from getting the award. We got a Bronze Award in this competitor-ocean.
RESPONSIBILITY
For this is a collective project, I have to participate every part of the design. All of us are responsible for creating PVC templates, documenting context record, adjusting the ratio of the cement in order to find the best solution of our material and finally, bending the half-concrete cement. Without the contribution of any group members, this project might not be able to finish.
At the beginning of design, I was responsible for determining the theme and topic of our project. The final decision on our topic is the result of our group discussion. We ought to produce a furniture which is both useful and beautiful. After determining the topic, I research the topic of producing material, ranging from non-organic to organic material. Also, I had to conduct the experiment myself and found the most suitable material for producing our furniture. In those experiments, I ground those materials, such as wood, cement or rock, into powder, trying to find the best ratio-collection of our material. At the same time, I shot the video record as well as photos of our producing process. Editing them is also my responsibility.
Besides, I also responsible for finding the best material for our template. I’ve asked more than 20 material stores and explain our concept to them to strive for their assistance. Fortunately, I found the ideal material for producing our template--PVC.
All of the group members are responsible for the design. We discussed with our coordinator every day to modify the final version of the design. Specifically, I finalize the design by completing the engineering drawing.
GALLERY
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MEDIA CONNER
Reported by China Times
Nowadays, cement furniture is identical to other plastic products because they are both generally made by cast pouring. The process of cast pouring is lacking the basic elements of furniture--warmness and emotional connection. Through the process of shaping and blending plastic mold by hand, “Ni” stresses the interaction between humans and raw materials. The curved surface can only be produced by the gentle care of the human touch, which represents the warmness of our mind. The cement material, however, indicates the coldness of its context in the world. Displaying the purest aspect of the material, this product combines both the coldness of cement and the warmness of human beings and proves that even under the cold look of modern people, a tender affection can also come out of the surface through the interaction between humans and furniture.