The project is the first of many explorations for my Degree Project at the Rhode Island School of Design.
My goal is to design a product series with a vocabulary of common and limited parts. These parts will be designed to interact with each other in varying ways to create a lighting object, surface object, and seating object of the same approximate scale.
For this project, I decided to focus on a fairly simple collection of parts in order to create final prototypes for a small taste light and side table.
The first step of the process occurred through writing, in which I identified the need of each object. For instance, the presence of a lighting object in the product series means that many elements needed to be hollow. From there I went on to design a collection of parts, and then two objects that were composed of elements of this collection. I worked back and forth from parts to prototypes to finalize these designs. From there I moved on to fabricating the parts (for this stage nearly all parts are made out of steel), then to finish and assembly.
The research question I will use to move forward is, "How can a collection of predesigned parts be used to create pieces that serve different functions (i.e. lighting, surface, and seating structure)?"
Connection Details
Initial Sketches
Initial Material Studies
Color Studies
Final Drawings
Final Collection of Parts
Fabrication and Assembly!
