Come hackerare una sedia nell’era dell’open design

Articolo originariamente pubblicato su CheFuturo

Quando mi ha scritto Viviana Narotzky, storica del design e presidente di ADI-FAD, sono rimasta piacevolmente stupita perché per la prima volta mi sarei ritrovata a raccontare di moda collaborativa in un contesto di puro design. L’evento intitolato “Open Design, Shared Creativity” (Design aperto, creatività condivisa) si è tenuto durante un forum internazionale organizzato proprio lo scorso luglio durante il Festival del Design a Barcellona, che ha riunito vari pensatori e sperimentatori intorno al tema dell’open design.

Non si trattava del primo evento incentrato su questo tema in Europa, già ad Amsterdam e a Berlino lo scorso anno si era detto e fatto molto, specialmente a partire dal lancio del libro “Open Design Now! Why design cannot remain exclusive” (Design aperto ora! Perché il design non può rimanere esclusivo) che oggi è considerato una sorta di reader per chi vuole capire lo stato dell’arte delle riflessioni sul design dai codici aperti. Il libro, una raccolta di saggi ed interviste, è pubblicato in forma cartacea ma già ora sul sito è possibile leggere gran parte dei pezzi perché a partire dalla pubblicazione è stato rilasciato online l’80% del suo contenuto e presto raggiungerà la sua completa “apertura”.

Il mio stupore derivava dal fatto che, in questi ultimi anni, le tematiche del design open source hanno quasi sempre ricevuto attenzione in contesti più lontani dal design industriale e di moda. Come ha detto Ronen Kadushin, uno tra i designer partecipanti al forum, il concetto di open design rappresenta uno dei tentativi di chiudere il vuoto creativo tra il design di prodotto e gli altri campi creativi come la musica, la grafica, la fotografia. Un tentativo messo in atto attraverso le relazioni tra i prodotti e le economie che si sono sviluppate grazie alle opportunità di condivisione legate al web 2.0 e alla diffusione di macchine a controllo numerico.

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From the idea to the prototype with the help of open design

At the end of July I spent a week at Supsi with Massimo Banzi and around 20 participants at the Physical & Wearable computing with Arduino summer school.

The focus of the course was on the design and prototyping of digitally fabricated interactive objects. It was the first time I was working with Massimo and some weeks before I shared with him the approach I had in mind.

Usually, wearable technology workshops start from ready-made garments or accessories. Old gloves and t-shirts, cheap belts or jackets are “decorated” with technology.
I wanted to experiment a different point of view.
I would have brought some rough prototypes of wearable accessories made of felt and produced with a lasercut.

I prepared the files during the previous months with the help of professional tailor Nadia – who knows much about measures and fit, and Vectorealism, my partners at Wefab – who gave me direct access to the lasercut to prepare the first drafts.

I wanted to present these drafts to the students so they could have an idea of what it meant to use felt with a lasercut and allow them to get inspired touching, wearing and exploring some real examples.

The workshop didn’t require any knowledge in fashion design or sewing, and when you don’t know anything about a topic is pretty hard to be creative especially when you have, at the same time, to deal with leds, sensors and programming.

That’s why I thought it would be useful to start from some Open Design, to “copy” from a series of ready-made that could be easily adapted to the different necessities of a wearable interaction and, in a way, adapt their shape to it.

I explained the students that at the end of the week those prototypes would have become a package and released with a Creative Commons License on Thingiverse and if they come up with any new idea, it could be added to the collection.

And after days of designing, cutting and even sewing here’s the result: “Lasercut Wearable Prototype Collection – Felt Edition” is now available on Thingiverse and you can download it and prod/use it yourself!

I’m sure that there are many other accessories that could be added to this initial collection, so if you want to collaborate you can create derivatives directly on Thingiverse, join our OpenwearShare flickr group or contact me directly on twitter ( @openwear_cc ) in case you want to add some new items.

A special mention goes to Thomas Amberg who created a cool project to help a friend and used the Modular Belt as a base for it. You can read the documentation of his project here: balanceshirt.tumblr.com.
And a second mention goes to the team of students who worked at the FrogBike Back and accepted to release it within the collection!