Non-Designed Object

Design is a central part of many industries. It functions as a wide classification and field that emphasizes a set of principles that make products functional. The idea of design can be viewed as making something aesthetically pleasing and in addition making something work well. Those who design can be anyone. They can be individuals working in the broad field of design, such as web designers, graphic designers, production designers, product designers, architects, artists, and many more. While design is very broad, each specialization within the field can parallel one and other. One definition defines design as “the way in which something is planned and made” (Cambridge Dictionary). The field of design parallels art and technical systems that emphasize a specific set of principles that change and at times are modified from industry to industry. Design in itself can have similarities from product design to architecture, though at its core, it is very diverse.

With its broadness in definition, designers have sought to specify the difference between design and non-design. Non-design versus Design, emphasises this very contradiction. Non-design contrasts though works with design as a way to create meaning through creativity. One of the sources that mentions this in depth is Diana Agrest’s argument, Design Versus Non-Design. First presented in 1974, then published in Fall 1976 in Oppositions 6, the "Journal for Ideas and Criticism in Architecture" (Oppositions Reader). The journal was a collection of essays and articles. It was published between 1974-1984 in 26 issues in 24 volumes by MIT Press and Rizzoli for the Institute of Architecture and Urban Studies (IAUS). Proposed by Agrest in her paper, the argument seeks to understand the ways in which ideas or creations can be defined separate from the idea of design. The term, Non-Design can be defined as such:

“Non-Design is a term proposed by Diana Agrest in her essay Design versus Non-Design to describe objects and environments that are the products of unconscious design, such as the vast random collection of the units of meaning or sign-fragments that constitute the urban-scale built environment. Distinct both from conscious, intentionally Designed objects and from products of accident or nature (Not Designed), a Non-Designed object, environment or system is one that has been built through (human) agency, but which is being studied at a scale (spatial or temporal) which removes the consciousness of any single human designer from consideration.

This idea led me to think of designer and researcher Ana Goidea and her work. As the field of architecture continues to innovate, there has been a transition to combining science and design as a means towards expanding different ways to construct structures. Pulp Faction is a new way to innovate how we view design and architectural structures. On Goidea’s website, Pulp Faction is described as “a transdisciplinary project at the intersection of microbiology, digital fabrication and architecture that provides the alternative of growing to extraction as material sourcing. These new material systems are produced through biofabrication and digital computation.” Goidea is “currently doing her PhD at Lund University, at the intersection of architecture, digital fabrication and biology” (Creative Mornings). As her team uses an interdisciplinary approach to architecture by integrating design and biofabrication, her work intends to bridge a gap between nature and technology. She works in a studio that combines her work as a design researcher with the research of microbiologists. Her team’s work creates these “biohybrid” (Creative Mornings) structures, built for modularity by 3D printing and growing funghi into “complex geometries” (Creative Mornings). Inspired by termite’s mounds, Goidea states in her Creative Mornings talk that these termite mounds are created by a symbiosis with a funghi species that breaks down plant matter that the termites cannot digest to create these complex geometric structures that are lightweight and sustain a home for termites. These structures led her and her team to research ways in which they can grow these biohybrid structures.

I find that the Pulp Faction as an interdisciplinary project combining nature and technology helps to correlate to the socio-cultural context of what Diana Agrest argues. As Agrest argues that non-design “describes the way in which different cultural systems interrelate and give form to the built world.” I feel in this way that the abstract design not-intended to be created specifically for their design aesthetic though creates a result thereof, represents this open system of what Agrest argues. This project integrates different influences that in itself help to create culture. As an individual part is based on the decomposition of plant matter that creates and provides a sustainable structure for termite residence. As a whole the species of funghi can grow into complex, lightweight modular structures, that when put together can create culture, a physical space such as a building. Goidea’s and her team’s “new material systems” help to fabricate a new way to see how culture can be interpreted from a cultural, psychological, and design aesthetic, to formulate creative ways to “build our homes in collaboration with microorganisms” (Goidea). To learn more about the project please visit her website, https://anagoidea.com/ and her page on Pulp Faction, https://anagoidea.com/Pulp-Faction. To learn more about Diana Agrest and Ana Goidea's research, please see the pdfs below linked from ResearchGate.

"Please Note, that all of the images used are mainly for academic purposes in order to convey research and criticism to help use imagery to better convey a clear argument. Understanding the work is the author's and photographer's ownership, it is not to be conveyed or used for any other purpose than to support the research of the article for this academic project "getting to know u(rl)" titled under the project "gettwourl" part of the larger academic project "Jonathan Hackner" (/jo-ha/ for the student's class url), for the student's work for this class in order to demonstrate skills in web design while researching information for this academic circumstance. Usually permission would be asked in advance in all circumstances; this is mainly to demonstrated content, academic, and web design creative development practice for this course. This content is non-commercial and is for academic purposes. The only way it will be demonstrated is in the context of the college's academic work of students (faculty and college as a whole) and student's academic portfolio work (student who created work, Jonathan Hackner)."

To learn more about Ana Goidea's and Diana Agrest's work, please visit: Non-designed documents.