I thought the concept of “Mythologies” was very interesting. I particularly was drawn to the mini essay about plastics. I like the way the author describes plastic as the universal material that really has the ability to do and replicate almost any shape, form, texture, etc. I also felt the way the author spoke about plastic as a ‘disgraced material’ was a very interesting insight into the realm of materials. Until now I had really never thought about how industrial plastic is, and how unnatural it really looks (especially in its available colours). I disagree, however, that plastic is ‘disgraced’ because it should be celebrated for its unique properties – the forms it can be shaped into, the strength it has, etc. I understand that most materials are celebrated for their innate natural beauty (such as furs, woods, metals), but I don’t think that plastic should necessarily be considered a disgrace just because it is not natural.
In regards to plastic being so unnatural, I thought the author should have mentioned the environmental factors of producing plastic, especially since he/she was trying to describe plastic as a disgraced material. This article I found from the New York Times discusses the overuse of plastic by today’s designers. It is an important thing to think about because plastic really isn’t as recyclable as most people believe it to be:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/style/tmagazine/26plastic.html
The other article, “The Uncommon Life of Common Objects” also really resonated with me. I particularly liked that the author began with the short anecdote about her son’s fascination with having his own desk while staying in a beach house. I know it is not really the focus of the article, but I can definitely relate to how I felt the first time I stayed at a hotel. It was really a marvel to have a desk, stocked with pads of paper and pens and pencils and anything you could ever need. Anyway, I liked that the author focused on the illusive nature of defining the desk, and how different everyone’s interpretations of a ‘desk’ are. It felt like the author was getting at the fact that a desk can really be anything, and does not necessarily mean sitting on a chair at a table.
I was particularly intrigued by the idea of the soft office mentioned by the author, so I found an article that further explains the concept:
http://www.designmuseum.org/design/hella-jongerius
Not surprisingly, she has been a part of Droog Design. The article is basically an interview of Jongerius, and provides some interesting insight into her thought process.
Finally, I was interested to check out the work of Tom Newhouse, mainly because the author explained he had been working at these ideas for so many years. I found a description about his work at Herman Miller, which is pretty interesting:
http://www.hermanmiller.com/CDA/SSA/Designer/0,,a10-c80-b22,00.html
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2 comments:
I strongly agree with Jesse about the first author’s point. Plastic is amazing, the invention of plastic giving people the opportunity to explore and design more things that is beneficial to the world. But I don’t think plastic is “disgraced”, the word “ disgraced” is too strong to described plastic. Plastic is not a natural material, and the process of making it will usually harm the earth. It is not a recycle friendly material. Although it has a lot of bad points, but I think it is more beneficial than harm.
From the second article ”the Uncommon Life of Common Objects”, I agree with Jesse that the desk can really be anything. People interpreting desk really differently from one another.
I agree with you Jesse about the using plstic as a disgraced material because it is a very important invention of the human evolvement as well as the techenology. Therefore, as long as people use it in a good why, it is a good material. However, at the meantime, they need to think about the situation of global warming and over using fossil fuel.
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