Projects from Master's Degree in Design Research

GUIDED OBSOLESCENCE (Nine Human Blocks) is the second project - by Maialen Argoitia, Andrea Chavez, Tendai Dzimwasha, Vanessa Geldres, Ana Hernando, Marta Llurba, Nicolás Mendez, Heloísa Oliveira and Matilde Sartori - which, in an experimental and bordering on ironic way, seeks to contemplate the relationship between the human and the non-human: in a field essay exercise, the designers spent an entire week ‘living’ with nine blocks of discarded materials, which they carried with them in their daily lives.

This master’s thesis explores the intersection of conflict and value creation within the context of sustainable design. The central research question examines how conflicts, both internal and external, create limits that shape new values. The roots of this research come from personal experiences, particularly the geopolitical tensions between Russia and Ukraine, to frame the investigation.

The research employs a mixed-methods approach, combining theoretical analysis with practical design exercises. The theoretical framework includes references to global conflicts, sustainable design practices, and the life cycle of objects. It discusses the implications of abundance and overconsumption in contemporary society, drawing insights from thinkers like Susan Sontag, Michel Foucault, and Jane Bennett. A key argument is that abundance serves to entertain and distract us from being critical, leading to indifference and catastrophe.

The speculative framework guided the practical approach, involving the collection of discarded items from the streets of Barcelona and repurposing them into new objects, specifically chairs. Within this practice, strict limits were established, formulated by the speculative post-catastrophe scenario, where resources are scarce, and creativity is paramount. The creation of sixteen chairs from discarded materials demonstrated how constraints can stimulate innovation and sustainable design practices. Each chair symbolized the resolution of conflicts, combining disparate parts into cohesive, functional entities.

The results highlight the destructive impact of abundance and underscore the importance of limits in effectively addressing both internal and external conflicts, thereby fostering new values.

Through material research with local clays, this is a project that explores limbo and becoming, catalyzing into earthbound artifacts (Latour, 2017) capable of germinating, transforming, and returning to their origins, who talk about change, sympoiesis, and the unclassifiable and hybrid. I propose the container artifact in becoming as the form of the bastard matter. Containers who challenge the boundaries between mud and ceramics.

The project, which, as will be seen, is deeply rooted in personal questions, raises a number of initial questions: How do you make a becoming and living container? What does a container contain? How to design with others? How do we inhabit limbo and thresholds? This is an experimental research whose fundamental objectives are to get to know local clays and to deepen the process of material transformation, given by firing, of clay into ceramics. To open this threshold and play within it, inherit from pottery craftsmanship and break with the discipline, hybridize, and connect. Part of this material exploration also focuses on the germination of plants in clay. At the same time, the investigation is critical in that it is framed in a post-humanist view and reveals the assembly and entanglements (Haraway, 2019) in which all the actants of the investigation are embedded.

This research does not pretend to solve any problem, on the contrary, it moves away from the problem-solving to which the mercantile practices of design have responded and humbly approaches Donna Haraway's approach of Getting on with the problem. It is rather a material and autoethnographic experimental exercise that starts from a process of personal observation from a non-normatively situated perspective in my condition as an adult, hetero, cis, Latin American, neurodivergent, designer, privileged man, full of questions about what it means not to fit into the mould of normative masculinity and the way in which ‘real men’ construct bonds.

Far from being a therapeutic exercise in revising my masculinity, it is an investigative and experimental exercise that employs tools and methods from design research and practice-based research to open up questions about patriarchal masculinity and, from the conversation with discarded wood, to speculate on different ways of being a man and different ways of being a man, to speculate on different ways of being a man and the construction of bonds that value care from feeling and thinking with other human, non-human and more-than-human beings in less vertical, more intuitive, sensual and loving relationships, forming diverse, vibrant and open assemblages.

Speculative design allows us to work on probable, possible and desira-ble futures. What if we started to bodyfy objects and treat them like women? It would be absurd probably, but isn’t absurd women feeling like objects? What does it mean to feel like an object?

Embodied objects become uncomfortable and useless, doesn't that give us food for thought? Through fiction, a proposal of human decentering is developed that places objects as protagonists, modifying them, censoring them and treating them as the female body. The project addresses the dichotomy between person/thing through humor and criticism and focuses on the object/woman comparison, with the aim of raising questions and challenging the viewer.

Through material and narrative research, this project explores the form and philosophy of design as a golem, seeking and revealing an approach to the relationship between creator and creation. I propose a narrative for the recomposition of the myth as a tool to approach and revalue the designed. The project arises from a poetic and chaotic becoming, the thoughts that emerge in the creative process, either from the material approach, a previous idea, or a common decision. Why do we design containers? How conscious are we of what we give to what we create? How would it be gestated from the narrative myth, something whose time is not present? How do we design for a future that we have not yet imagined, being aware of the present state? This is experimental research aims to approach the material and the narrative, to speculate about the capacities of the created, about the unfinished and to dialogue about it. At the same time, the research is of a critical nature, opening and pointing out the wounds of the material treatment in creative teaching spaces, assembling tools of dialogues on concepts prior to creation.

Asignatura: Diseño, Poder y Sociedad

Proyecto de investigación que cuestiona la relación de poder y los vínculos de intimidad entre lo humano y lo no-humano a través de elementos botánicos artificiales, haciendo uso de códigos e imaginarios que surgen de la relación humano y planta natural.

La investigación parte de la idea de poner en cuestión nuestra relación con las plantas artificiales dentro de los espacios domésticos. A partir de un ejercicio de diseño especulativo, la estudiante desarrolla el Jardín de Elementos Botánicos Permanentes de Barcelona. Con él quiere poner al alcance del visitante un pequeño recorrido que atraviesa diferentes miradas sobre la vegetación artificial que conforma, actualmente, el paisaje de los espacios domésticos y cotidianos de la ciudad de Barcelona. La función del Jardín es la de preservar y dar a conocer colecciones de plantas permanentes de todo el mundo. Entre sus objetivos principales destacan la conservación y documentación del patrimonio artifical de Barcelona, actuar como elemento difusor de la cultura botánica permanente y los vínculos íntimos generados con los humanos, promover el conocimiento y el respeto por los orígenes naturales de cada uno los elementos del jardín y los procesos de composición material, producción y distribución a lo que son sometidos.

Scope of the project: Experimental purpose
Research methodology used: Material experimentation
Tutor: Carla Boserman

Objectives/Implications: 
Climate change, loss of biodiversity, resource depletion and excessive accumulation of waste are some of the harmful effects of modern life. We need to face up to the challenge of reimagining and redesigning a political and economic system based on the over-exploitation of resources and the generation of waste, but also to reimagine our relationship with natural systems. In this context, design must act as an agent of change and help to build an alternative model that will enable sustainable progress. The ecological crisis therefore requires more attention to be paid to the political and economic frameworks on which the current system is based, but also to materials and manufacturing processes. Can design practice be understood as a process of political activism? What about cooking? What if we design on the basis of relationships of interdependence and care? What are the affective forces and agency capacities generated by the links with the material? What if we replace the studio or laboratory with the kitchen?

Abstract:
Pasta Fría is committed to an expanded conception of materiality on the basis of a sustainable design approach in order to contribute to the exploration of DIY materials that seek to change the way we produce and consume. To do so, research and material experimentation has been developed from a circular and self-production perspective - reusing food waste, in particular mussel shells and eggshells, to transform it into a biomaterial for 3D printing. The experimentation is located in the kitchen, converted into an experimental circular laboratory, and seeks to valorise the process and its times. The result is a functional recipe for 'cooking' a biomaterial for ceramic 3D printers from egg shells and a food additive commonly used in gastronomy.

Keywords:
Biomaterials / Kitchens / Material experimentation / 3D printing / waste

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Muchos de los objetos cotidianos que nos rodean tienen un origen militar o han sido creados con fines relacionados con el poder y las guerras. Uno de ellos es la lata de conservas, invento para preservar los alimentos creado con el fin de mantener a los ejércitos más tiempo en el campo de batalla y lograr así una expansión más eficaz. Fue Napoleón, en su afán de poder, quien ofreció 12.000 francos de la época a aquél que idease un sistema capaz de conservar alimentos largo tiempo, si bien existen indicios de que a mediados del s. XVIII ya se empezaron a usar métodos de almacenamiento.

La investigación realizada sobre las latas de conserva creadas con un afán de poder y convertidas en símbolo de abundancia del sistema capitalista, lleva al estudiante a proponer una instalación compuesta por una colección de 36 latas de salsa de tomate en conserva, divididas en 3 grandes “sabores”, siglos XIX, XX y XXI, en los que se engloba una selección de 12 conflictos bélicos por época. A través de ella, el estudiante se pregunta si podríamos entender la sociedad contemporánea sin la lata de conserva.

Asignatura: Diseño, Poder y Sociedad 

Diseño ficción, crítico y especulativo

El diseño especulativo nos permite trabajar sobre unos futuros probables, posibles y deseables. De esta forma, el diseño juega un papel experimental y pasa a ser un escenario en el que se resuelven problemas y donde se formulan nuevas preguntas. 

A través de la ficción, se desarrolla esta propuesta de descentramiento humano, que sitúa a el pecho como centro y medida de todas las cosas.El proyecto pretende realizar un diseño especulativo que gira en torno a la idea de crear una serie de gatches que empoderen al pecho y lo doten de la capacidad (o no) de modificar su propio ser. Hacer que pueda tener el poder de decisión sobre su condición intrínseca como pecho. ¿Qué pasa si un pecho quiere dejar de ser maternal y si no quiere ser redondo?, ¿qué pasa si quiere ser cuadrado?, ¿podría pasar desapecibido?, ¿y decidir sobre el número de pezones que quiere tener?

Asignatura: Fabricación y prototipado

Con el fin de generar objetos absurdos como crítica al capitalismo y al solucionismo tecnológico, la estudiante decide investigar el origen de los materiales, la sostenibilidad y, sobre todo, entrar en contanste conflicto con la máquina como forma de aprender, y no sólo de generar frustración por no conseguir un resultado óptimo, en el entorno de un FabLab.

La investigación parte de la intención de simular materiales cotidianos y conseguir la manera de traducir métodos artesanales a un formato digital. Partiendo de la definición de artesano que realiza Richard Sennett (The Craftsman), según la cual artesano es aquel que tiene una perfecta conexión entre su mente y la mano para poder llegar a realizar una réplica exacta de la imagen que habita en su cabeza, la estudiante investiga la agencia de una impresora 3D, tratándola como una nueva forma de entender la artesanía: el artesano mecánico. Por ello, reproduce diferentes objetos del imaginario colectivo del ámbito de la artesanía, con sus correspondientes materiales (cerámica, mimbre, cristal, madera), con el objetivo de generar una investigación focalizada en la relación entre el objeto, su materialización y la impresora 3D. Finalmente, acaba generando nuevos objetos cotidianos de un nuevo imaginario en el ámbito de la artesanía mecánica.

Scope of the project: Experimental purpose
Research methodology used: Material experimentation
Tutor: Camila René Maggi

Objectives/Implications: 
To investigate with experimental practices and mobilise materialities related to fashion design in order to question its limits, languages and derived production systems.

Abstract:
It is truly complex and difficult to act from a position that attempts to generate long lasting objects. There are several examples of objects and products that have tried and failed, such as light bulbs, socks or razors. However, the approach launched through this research is that by altering the order established by the industry - in terms of clothing production - the conception of the obsolescence of the garments can also be altered. An important factor within the product's life cycle is the guarantee, considered as the social and political contract established between producer and consumer, in which the producer grants the consumer the minimum duration of the product's life. Through this material research on systems used to protect and guarantee the state of an object/product, probe objects are proposed which establish the relationship between subject and object in a hybrid state. The search for techniques and materialities to develop the probe objects stresses the clothing production system itself, focusing on small gestures and details such as the sewing machine and how it perforates the knowledge, the body and the clothing designer profession. 

Keywords:
Material experimentation / Tools / Machinism/ Processes

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