Over the next few weeks we will be highlighting award-winning projects and ideas from this year's Core77 Design Awards 2013. We will be featuring these projects by category, so stay tuned for your favorite categories of design! For full details on the project, jury commenting and more information about the awards program, go to Core77DesignAwards.com.
"The Restless of Objects" is about logistics and everyday life. It aims to better understand what logistics is, the ways it is imagined, the spaces it creates, the technologies it deploys, and the ways it connects to our own habits and desires. It is written in an accessible scholarly manner that tries to make space for the fascinating and humorous aspects of the subject matter.
- How did you learn that you had been recognized by the jury?
By watching it live, of course!
- What's the latest news or development with your project?
I am working on a related book project that expands on some aspects of the essay with a more specific focus on the architecture and logistics of Walmart.
- What is one quick anecdote about your project?
The folks at Cabinet are an amazing bunch with astonishing energy and dedication. Not satisfied with approximating the UPS logistics "heart," the design team went above and beyond to get the little heart-shaped arrow just right. That same care goes into all the things they do!
- What was an "a-ha" moment from this project?
I was happy to learn that the first-ever bar coded product was a 10-pack of JuicyFruit. Chewing gum's finite and questionable utility makes it the perfect product to inaugurate the age of automated consumerism.
View the full project here.
Photo courtesy of DMY International Design Festival.
This text is about the controversies surrounding crowdsourcing. It takes a pending class action law suit against a particular crowdsourcing platform in the US as an occasion to discuss the ethical considerations that have to be taken into account when it comes to questions of labour and fair wages in crowdsourcing in general and in the field of design in particular. While committing to academic standards the style of writing has the goal to be accessible to a broader non-expert readership. It aims to provide criteria to evaluate the variety of modes of production associated with crowdsourcing.
- How did you learn that you had been recognized by the jury?
Well, I watched the verdict of the jury live. Pretty exiting.
- What's the latest news or development with your project?
I will continue to do research on the problematic of crowdsourcing in design through participant observation. This is the core of my PhD thesis.
- What is one quick anecdote about your project?
The text was written as part of the research track of the international media art festival transmediale. The theme of transmediale in 2013 was "Back When Pluto Was a Planet". In 2006, Pluto was "deplanetised" and transmediale used the BWPWAP theme to look at how media and internet culture has changed since then. The article was published in the digital academic journal of transmedial in February (http://www.aprja.net/?page_id=46). It was also the basis for a talk at the festival and I published a revised and condensed version on my website.
View the full project here.
Both articles examine issues of preservation, reuse, renovation and opportunistic architecture in the urban environment. The first piece looks at the trend of American pharmacy chains to rehabilitate abandoned bank buildings, and the second discusses the perception of a Brutalist university campus as it slowly transformed by additions and subtractions.
- How did you learn that you had been recognized by the jury?
I found out through an email on my phone while riding the 704 bus down Santa Monica Blvd. in Los Angeles on my way home from work.
- What's the latest news or development with your project?
Another piece discussing opportunistic architecture and buildings that are "Bigger on the Inside" will be published in the forthcoming issue of CLOG:Sci Fi.
- What is one quick anecdote about your project?
The reactions to the first piece, Of Bank Vaults and Prescription Drugs, ranged from laughter to intense accusations of insensitivity to the plight of inner-city residents. Proof that many are still unwilling to either discuss sensitive issues like gentrification objectively, or read anything carefully.
- What was an "a-ha" moment from this project?
The "a-ha" moment came in the form of a realization that I actually have an opinion about preservation or the lack there of. Though my opinion is neither positive nor negative, I have been able to find a productive tack that has broadened my perspective on existing buildings.
View the full project here.
Both articles examine issues of preservation, reuse, renovation and opportunistic architecture in the urban environment. The first piece looks at the trend of American pharmacy chains to rehabilitate abandoned bank buildings, and the second discusses the perception of a Brutalist university campus as it slowly transformed by additions and subtractions.
- How did you learn that you had been recognized by the jury?
I saw it on Twitter!
- What is one quick anecdote about your project?
For this project, I did preliminary research by visiting the Museum of Sex, where Emilie Baltz was the Brand Director. I came in around noon, I thought the most innocuous time to visit. When I got there, there was a very long line to get in and had a club couply vibe -- middle of the afternoon!. The prude in me was raging.
I did some follow-up interviews about Emilie. Her mom, a guidance counselor, was so delightful to talk to. She was generous with her time and I could tell she was beaming with pride through the phone.
- What was an "a-ha" moment from this project?
It was amazing to see so many facets of a personality. Emilie was variant, delightfully shape-shifting—so accomplished but still ever-becoming.
View the full project here.
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