Trash-Can Project

Illustration 1.

Illustration 2.

Illustration 3.

Illustration 4.

Illustration 5.

Introduction:

The brief required a trashcan to be built in our studio space for the recycling of 'design junk' based on the reading Lila: An Inquiry into Morals by Robert M. Pirsig and the overarching theme of the Medieval Carnival (the design theme for this semester). For my group, the Paper (3D scan) group, we had an additional requirement to relate or draw inspiration from the 3D scans of 10 collected objects. The collected objects were mostly found as rubbish; thus, initiating the irony of 'rubbish' as an inspiration for a 'trashcan.'

The Process: 

With my idea I began with the understanding that our junk must be forgotten to get rid of the bias and the emotional state at that time, both of which inclined towards witnessing the idea in a bad light. Only when we have forgotten about the dark subjectivity attached to the idea, through a process of distancing ourselves from the project, could we begin to rethink, review and re-engage with the 'junk' ideas as a way of inspiring us for new projects in the future. That is, we must first get rid of our negativity that associates the idea as junk to allow for it to be useful later - and that begins, in my opinion, through not seeing the object for a long period of time.

This idea developed further to accomodate a design that allowed for the characteristic of 'randomising'; this would allow the storage of the junk ideas to be rearranged into a place where it would be hard to be found at once, thus hiding the junk until we are able to rid ourselves from negativity. Furthermore, I thought it was necessary to physically demonstrate this aspect of 'hiding' and 'randomising' so that the trashcan was able to be actively engaged with; hence, the physical act would emphasise the desire to 'forget.' From my research, these concepts was most readily related to puzzles.

Puzzles, such as the rubicks cube, coincided with my intentions of randomising and hiding. Through motion of the rubicks cube, the coloured squares could be rearranged in a way that was random. This process can be illustrated above in Illustration 1. The eventual development towards my design was allowing for movement as a way of randomising things and engagement with the trashcan itself.

In relation to the reading, the trashcan facilitated the random access part and some limited ways of sorting the 'junk' into 2D, 3D and digital design works. That is, the trashcan was readily available and could be used without restriction (except on the availability of junk) and had limited sorting into groups depending on mediums. The reading also inspired the idea of 'systems' and I tried to continuously think of my design as both a physical object but also as a set of possible and positive consequences.

Finally, I chose the 'egg carton' scanned object as a starting point to my design. I quite liked the idea of the egg carton being made to 'fit' the egg, which made it extremely condensed and functional. While playing around with the egg carton scan, by stretching horizontally and vertically, I began to see that the design junk could be like the egg, and so the container might resemble something of an egg carton stretched in different ways dependent on the nature of the media.

The Final Outcome:

The design's final outcome encompasses the ideas of randomising and hiding in three different 'modules' of red (for the digital media), orange (for the three dimensional work) and the blue (for the two dimensional work) which move around so that each module can be 'hidden' amongst the masses of similar modules.

The location of the trashcan was at the Architecture studio, in attempts to bring something 'playful' into the somewhat gloomy place (that is, the architecture studios are somewhat purely functional and there are no 'fun' things anywhere). It was also to encourage the use of the trashcan amongst many people so that we can find not only our own ideas but other design junk from other students; and also to enable others to join in together and discuss.

 The trashcan was displayed on the wall in colourful arrangements to provide a final aesthetic comment.

 Hate/Love:

• I hated how I focused more on the model than the drawings.
• I hate how my drawings were not efficient in conveying the final outcome; this, I felt gave the overall presentation to have inconfidence and uncertainty. These factors made it feel less strong.
• I liked how ideas needed to be tested to properly work and learning that the project's success is its plausibility in real life context.