This year's Design Schools Workshop, held annually at WantedDesign, focused on the theme, "Design Forever." Conducted by Sebastian Ocampo and Cecilia Leon de la Barra of Centro Mexico, participating Schools were Centro (Mexico), Art Center College for Design, (Pasadena, USA) and Savannah College of Art and Design (Savannah, USA).

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The workshop took place at the new WantedDesign Brooklyn in Industry City, with the final public presentations held in the Conversation Lounge at WantedDesign/Manhattan.

Core77 was proud to be the media sponsor for the event, along with presenting sponsor USM, Visual Magnetic and Shapeways.

About the Brief

Students were mixed into four different teams, and over the course of four days, each responded to the brief inviting students to think about the lives of objects—to design with the idea that what is being made will last forever. Here's more from the design brief:

In nature there is no such thing as rubbish, no waste. Instead, things gain a new purpose: The dead branch that gave fruit becomes moisture for the land, and so on. The environmental degradation as a consequence of economic success and rapid urbanization is resulting in transforming the world into a giant garbage bin. Analysts project a rise in the amount of waste—from 1.3 billion tons per year today to 2.2 billion tons per year by 2025—and raising the annual global costs for waste disposal from $205 billion to $375 billion. So what do we throw away? Why? What becomes of it? Who takes care of it? What makes an object disposable? Is it the materials, or the use/function? Or is the technology that's inside out of date. This workshop is about designing forever—taking a common object with a relatively low life expectancy and making it last. Students will try to understand and pinpoint the aspects that make an object disposable, and imagine innovative ways of designing a world with no waste.

Below are project descriptions and reflections in the participants' own words, along with project images and snapshots from the event.

EON
Designers: Arturo Neuman Slomovitz, Francisco García Cinta, India Hillis, Shawn M Horsey

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We began by trying to understand the meaning of forever. We thought of forever in terms of a human's life, and then in terms of transcending generations. We discussed objects that we felt represented "forever," and ones which we felt were ephemeral and disposable. Again and again the forever objects shared distinct qualities—they were simple, useful, fundamental and meaningful; the temporary objects were complex, frivolous and without meaning. Many of the forever objects were things like tools: A tool has a purpose but also can be linked to important memories and relationships. However, even a tool as simple and elegant as a wrench will not be forever. Eventually we will have no need for nuts and bolts, one could argue, and the wrench will become obsolete. We then began to think of forever—not in terms of human time, but in term of life-of-the-universe. Humans play only a tiny, nearly insignificant role when thinking in terms of this time frame. We felt that when considering forever, it was not enough to only think of the present and future, but important to think of the past as well. The problem is that as a human, it can be difficult to imagine "forever" in this way. We think of time in term of days and years, not millennia.

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For instance, before humans designed the hammer, there existed the "iron." Sure, we formed and refined the minerals into a hammer, but to think of the hammer as solely a human creation is to overlook billions of years of natural creation. The minerals that make a hammer not only existed long before the hammer, but will continue to exist long after the hammer and after humans are long gone.

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Indeed, a large part of what made us human was our desire to take what existed around us and to refine and improve upon it. But by altering the iron we limited it to a single function. The hammer is an example of human ingenuity at its best, yet still it will become obsolete. Think of all the useless objects that we conceive of and waste our finite resources on. We will only be able to solve the problems that we face today if we are able to think in longer terms.

So we figured it would be appropriate to come up with a tool to help us conceptualize forever. We came up with Eon—the ultimate utility tool. Of course, Eon is, in essence, a rock, and so it is not the "perfect tool" for every use, but it is the ultimate utility tool. Obviously this rock will never hammer as precisely as a modern hammer, or grind as well as a food processor, but you wouldn't nail together two boards with a food processor.

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As the ultimate utility tool, the Rock not only can be hammer, but a limitless tool.

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We illustrated an "instruction" manual for this tool that alludes to some of the possibilities for the user. To bring this tool to a contemporary context, we categorized these prompts into Making, Lifestyle and Cuisine. Each category corresponds with a number of dots, and we carried that branding language over to the rock itself.

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We intentionally over-branded this rock because we wanted to play with the idea that people tend to take too much credit for our creations. By adding the dots, we added a human element, diversifying its ability without augmenting its shape (thus not limiting its function). Our hope is that ultimately this would be a tool for conceptualizing forever, along with the notion of future design, function and capability.

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Process:
As a team we came from very diverse backgrounds and ways of thinking. During the first couple of days, our design approaches seemed irreconcilable. However, over the course of the workshop we all learned to adapt our methods of working for the greater benefit of the group and project. We learned to take a more democratic approach to decision making, and to force ourselves to understand one other's point of view. For all of us, the most valuable outcome of the workshop was not the "product" itself or even the design process; rather, it was the experience of trying to work with one another. In the end, we developed a product. But more than that, we developed a team.

DIGITAL ARTIFACTS
Designers: Tanner Price, Cecilia Mancera, Martin Francisco

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We began with a question: What items do we determine to hold value, and what items do we not? We found it ironic that the items in our world that were meant to be disposable were exactly the ones that lasted the longest—since they were often made of plastic. We then considered how humans pass on objects, inheriting them through family generations, but then realized that a lot of the things that we value today are actually in digital format—made of “information”—stored on servers in the form of 1’s and 0’s. 

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We focused on a gap we all felt—perhaps generational—where we are constantly immersed in “the digital.” We imagined a near future where we’ve stopped inheriting physical items; where we document everything in the cloud. And then we postulated: What if all the power on earth ran out one day? What if humans disappeared? What then would become the landmarks and legacies of our generation? Would we have this void, this blank space for the past three decades? There would be these dead boxes—PCs and mobile phones—with none of the meaning that we’ve put inside them.

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We created low-fidelity mockups of jewelry, artwork—things that would be found by a future culture. But the real momentum for our concept came when we took an historical approach to try to reconcile our digital history to the longer scale of human history. And by referencing historical artifacts such as ancient greek urns and vessels, we saw an opportunity to translate them forward into a near future. 

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Our concept is a physical manifestation of our digital world for future generations. It is a 3D-printed vessel that tells the story of an aspect of our digital age. The vase prototype that we printed is a manifestation of the @ symbol—one of the most important icons of our digital age. The information on the vase is layered, in three layers, like the Rosetta Stone. The first layer is the usage of “@email.com”. The second layer is a sentence description of what that usage is (“used to direct an email to a specific address”). The third layer is in binary, the universal language of the universe. Our goal is to provide a key for future cultures to be able to understand—to decipher—the intangible digital landscape we’ve created and now “occupy” without our devices being powered. 

Process:
We three students came from three different cultures: One is a digital media design student, another a product designer and a third a furniture designer. But we were able to connect right away to the common theme of “memory,” the memory of objects, and the value we put on them. Our discussions were deep and far-ranging, and we had magical moments of insight that got us all excited sitting around the table. Perhaps it was the mix of cultures and different points of view that drove us to our final concept. We didn’t come in with preconceptions, and remained open to each other’s opinions. The experience created by the Wanted Design Workshop is special for that reason, and the process wasn’t as important as the act of collaboration itself.

UNFOLD
Designers: Nicole Schwarz Nuñez, Jordi Veytia Iglesias, Yue Xi (Leo) Su, Heidi M Blair

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Our group immediately saw a strong link between the concept of Design Forever and waste. We were interested in what happens every time you buy a product. It doesn’t matter if the product is disposable in a half-minute or durable for decades—one thing is common to almost all products: At the exact moment of possession, you already have something that becomes waste. The package. 

Taking a walking trip around New York City, we noticed big piles of cardboard on the corners of the streets, so we linked these two ideas and decided we should do something with this material. Cardboard is a great material: When it’s new, it’s used for many different purposes—there are even architects using it to construct buildings.  But it is the disposed cardboard with which we have a problem; the material once it has completed a life cycle. 

What we seldom take into account is the fact that even though cardboard is a recyclable material, the process of actually recycling it consumes massive amounts of energy. What if we could acknowledge this fact, and simply give that discarded cardboard a second use?

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Since cardboard is often used as a box or container, the material typically loses some of its properties (folds and holes it it can limit its second-life applications). But at the same time, cardboard retains many good qualities: It is a great insulator—both with temperature and with noise.

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We wanted to break the negative perception that disposable packaging has and started exploring the different textures and shapes that the material could give us. We played with the material to create different textures and patterns through folding, weaving, cutting and pasting. During this charette process, a couple of passersby even asked us if we were selling the patterns!—one of them wanted to install the coverings in a coffee shop he was designing. So we decided we should focus on improving the perception we have about discarded cardboard, and to integrate it into spaces as wall coverings, ceiling fixtures and even space dividers.

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Unfold is a set of different patterns and textures in a modular system—easily installed and with low maintenance costs. We propose that this product would be used inside restaurants, corporate buildings, and living places. 

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We believe this project answers the challenge of Design Forever, not just because it gives waste a second use, but also because it gives spaces an updatable quality without generating more waste. The great value of this project—the forever quality—is that it takes a static and wasteful material and brings it to life, becoming appealing and adaptable through time. 

How We See
Designers: Katie Healey, Eny Lee Parker, Fernanda Leal, Diego Lara Olguín

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What does Design Forever mean to us? It wasn't about designing something new that literally lasts forever. Instead, it was more about examining the things that last forever—almost by accident. We did not feel it necessary to design new things; we have plenty of new things and plenty of new stuff. Rather, we wanted to look at changing the things that already exist.

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We started by developing and defining two terms. What is a "permanent object," and what is a "temporary object"? We defined permanent as something that we use over and over again in our lifespan. And temporary as objects with a one-time use.

We wanted to define which objects were permanent and which ones were temporary, but here we found a couple of key challenges: From what set of objects do we pick these specimens? The streets of most cites are lined with what we might call visual contamination; with discarded and forgotten objects from local businesses and residences.

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So in our rubric, these visual contaminations immediately become "temporary items" the moment that you throw it away. Could we imbue our ideas around trash with new meaning, in order to make these objects live longer?

The second issue pointed to the hypocrisy—irony if you want to reduce it—of using design materials: We found that many "temporary objects" such as disposable cutlery, are made out of more permanent, long-lasting materials, such as plastic.

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Can an object's temporary or permanent status inform the way things are made? As designers, should we design everything to be temporary? Or permanent? How could we shed light on this design flaw—one perhaps largely responsible for the public's common misconceptions regarding an object's intended usage?

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We decided to use the materials we found on the street, and created a design intervention aimed at changing their status. Employing the age-old (and decidedly low-tech) techniques of papier-mâché, we used the temporary-yet-permanent trash items (such as plastic bottles) as molds, casting new products—which were in fact temporary but which took the embodiments of typically "permanent" objects (lamps, birdhouses, etc.). We then returned these newly minted objects, along with their progenitors, to where we found them.

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Process:
“We started the journey using a method commonly known as mind mapping. We collected a series of words, phrases and stories, until something struck us as interesting. After going through a number of different concepts and themes, we finally landed on one. (Oddly enough, our final result—a critique of what we consider temporary design—had very little to do with that original concept.) As the days passed, and as tempers flared and cooled, and as ideas morphed, we finally began meaningfully collaborating with each other. In the end, it was a wonderful experience that none of us would trade. (We also can’t complain about all the great sandwiches and limitless coffee provided to us throughout the four days!)”

Snapshots from the event

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Comments from Odile Hainaut and Claire Pijoulat
"This year's workshop was really successful.The theme was particularly inspiring and engaged the students in great thinking and dialogues. Sebastian Ocampo/Centro, participated the two previous years with his students, and know really well the context of WantedDesign, and improved the rhythm and schedule. The three schools participating this year, SCAD, Art Center and Centro all participated previously (Art Center for 4 years now), and it really was fluid and easy to prepare.The fact that we have been able to dedicate a large space for the workshop at WantedDesign Brooklyn/Industry City, was perfect. Not only did the workshop start a day before compared to the other year, but also offers the perfect creative environment for more focused work.The students enjoyed visiting the opening night of WantedDesign Manhattan and met with great people of the industry when coming again to WantedDesign Manhattan for the final review. The jury reviews were rich and constructive. Overall, the dynamic was super nice, great group of talented and smart students, very good spirit.We hope it is an experience the students will remember forever."

Comments from Sebastian Ocampo

"Designing is about creating dialogues, and being able to share ideas with others. With the time that we had, we privileged the process over the tangible results and students were asked to continue questioning the relevance of their proposals until the end. We often find students at school concentrated on solving specific projects with a defined brief. With the Design Forever workshop they were asked to develop and communicate with a project an abstract concept with proposals that ranged from conceptual statements to tangible products. Overall I was impressed by the commitment of all the students regarding the theme and the great opportunity to share the process and results with others."

Comments from George Perez, SCAD

"From my perspective, the WantedDesign Schools Workshop 2015 was a crucible of sorts bringing together a diverse group of students with varying perspectives on the problem of Design Forever—their charge. I witnessed excitement, creativity, solidarity as well as frustration and confusion no different than any other university studio class. However, this all happened during a very intense WantedDesign event that exposed these young designers to an international crowd of designers, artists and industry. The pressure was on to develop insightful responses to the design task at hand and present them to a jury and it was there in the presentation/communication to the jury where I think much of the learning took place. The jury did a wonderful job of sorting through the ideas and approaches and providing qualified criticism and encouragement. They were not unanimous—healthy. As an educator, I often comment to students in the studio that the process of design and the path to a design solution is frequently more valuable to learning than what might be apparent by the end result. It has proven true over and over. I think the students experienced this very thing at the Wanted Design Schools Workshop where the student teams did not necessarily provide solutions to Design Forever but rather effectively created prompts for extended conversation about the nature of Design Forever."