Conceptual Designs for Sustainable Aesthetics: creative chess sets where form follows meaning

The paper presents conceptual designs that explore the notion of ‘sustainable aesthetics'. To encourage reflective practice through form and process, and guided by sustainable principles, a practice-based (thinking-and-doing) methodology was followed by Brazilian undergraduate design students. Beginning with a theoretical overview of the historical aesthetics of chess sets (premodern, modern and contemporary) the experimental findings show different approaches to thematic chess set designs that are guided by meaning-laden cultural considerations and developed using local, natural materials or reused (disposed) industrial materials. This is the first experiment of a project that represents a creative attempt to explore and develop an aesthetic for material culture through what we have termed a 'sustainable aesthetic function'. It demonstrates how objects with the same function can be expressed in very different ways whilst all adhering to the notion of "form follows meaning'.

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Decisive factors in the culture-oriented product development process in industrial design education

New Trends and Issues Proceedings on Humanities and Social Sciences ◽

10.18844/prosoc.v8i3.6398 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 8 (3) ◽

pp. 67-77

Author(s):

Pinar Cartier ◽

Aysem G. Basar

Keyword(s):

Material Culture ◽

Design Process ◽

Design Education ◽

Industrial Design ◽

Dynamic Structure ◽

Geographic Area ◽

Product Development Process ◽

Education Material ◽

Starting Point ◽

Design Students

Designers see culture as a starting point for designing meaningful products that appeal to users. Culture has a dynamic structure that is constantly affected by social changes. This research examines how socio-cultural factors are perceived, analysed and transferred by design students. The design process is aimed to identify the complex or challenging and on the contrary clearly understandable aspects. In the first stage of the research, the ideas of the established cultural images, culturally influential designs and designers who use culture as a starting point were determined through 24 industrial design students. The ideas of the students were asked about design and identity in a particular geographic area, they were also asked to explain their ideas about traditional forms and draw forms of them by sketches. The results are presented together with visual examples. The common points of how the culture-oriented design approach is used by designers in the product design process and the frequent mistakes, approaches and examples of projects in this process are revealed. Keywords: Keywords: Industrial design, education, material culture, design

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Objects /// Dimensions in 1 to 1

Advances in Media, Entertainment, and the Arts - Handbook of Research on Methodologies for Design and Production Practices in Interior Architecture ◽

10.4018/978-1-7998-7254-2.ch017 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 368-390

Author(s):

Bettina Menzel

Keyword(s):

Design Process ◽

Fair Trade ◽

Raw Materials ◽

Natural Materials ◽

Found Objects ◽

Sustainable Solutions ◽

Spatial Terms ◽

Design Students ◽

Architecture And Design ◽

The University

For the students of the Faculty of Architecture and Design in Wismar, the design process still begins with initial ideas on paper, despite increasing digitalization. In order to represent the university at the fair trade IMM Cologne, this approach is being taken up and translated into spatial terms. The examples show how architecture and design students at the university find sustainable solutions to human challenges by imitating the proven patterns and strategies of nature. The throw-away mentality should be counteracted; all elements used are reusable or recyclable. The objects show the use of natural materials such as wood as well as newly developed transformed raw materials and objects built from found objects and thus blossoming into new life.

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The material culture of music festival fandoms

European Journal of Cultural Studies ◽

10.1177/1367549420973211 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 136754942097321

Author(s):

Louise Barrière ◽

Rebecca Finkel

Keyword(s):

Material Culture ◽

Reflective Practice ◽

Lived Experiences ◽

Personal Narratives ◽

Economic Capital ◽

Collective Identities ◽

Event Management ◽

Music Festival ◽

The Core ◽

Depth Interviews

This article aims to explore an under-researched area of the entanglements between festivals and individual/collective identities by focusing on the material culture of festival fandoms. We start by conceptualizing festival fandoms as communities of people who attend the same festival or a similar festival type on a repeated basis. Our research focuses on how these recurrent festival attendees materially express their belonging to such communities, and how they claim being a fan as part of their identity. The core of the article starts with three conceptual sections. There, we discuss the existing literature in different related areas of research, which we link together utilizing Bourdieu’s forms of capital. First, we look through the theoretical lens of social capital at how various types of festivals foster identity communities and contribute to their visibility. Second, we explore the function of festival merchandising from the perspective of both event managers and festival attendees within economic capital frameworks. And third, we explain that fans use derived products to mark their status and belonging to a community of taste as related to cultural capital conceptualizations. The following sections of the article are based on auto-ethnographic approaches. Through reminiscence and in-depth interviews with each other, we recount personal narratives of reflective practice and situate our lived experiences within the aforementioned conceptual contexts. As a conclusion, we state that investigating the material cultures of festival fandoms has the potential to contribute to future evolutions of event management.

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Material Culture in Primates

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199218714.013.0017 ◽

2012 ◽

Author(s):

Tatyana Humle

Keyword(s):

Organic Matter ◽

Material Culture ◽

Natural Materials ◽

Depth Analysis ◽

Elementary Technology ◽

Definition Of

This article focuses on the idea of material culture in primates. The ascription of culture to non-human animals has been controversial and a source of much debate. Much of this debate hinges on the definition of culture. This article cites the classic definition by Tylor which says that culture as ‘that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society’. The term ‘culture’ was first used in relation to non-human primates by Kummer. This article explains elementary technology among primates which concerns predominantly subsistence behaviours, expressed in, often complex, foraging techniques. Elementary technology among wild primates is typically based on natural materials, whether vegetation or non-organic matter. The various processes involved in the transmission of material culture are explained in detail. An in-depth analysis of the conditions of material culture followed by a study of culture among primates concludes this article.

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