3000 Level Designed Objects Course Descriptions

DES OB 3005
Material Connections
This course explores the relationship between materials and their potential uses. “Traditional” materials (i.e., plastic, wood, metal, glass, stone, etc.) and their inherent properties will be examined as well as research into new materials. The focus will be on developing an understanding of manipulation and fabrication with these materials although experimental processes and methodologies will be encouraged. Design problems will demonstrate the innovative use of materials and processes drawn from the research, lectures, and demonstrations. Industry site visits, seminars, independent research, and material collection will allow students to build a personal library and vocabulary of materials, their properties, and handling skills.

DES OB 3010
Fundamentals of Wearable Computing
This course introduces the basic capabilities and problems of incorporating devices into clothing. Students will study multiple forms of mountable devices and their desired functions, and will design clothing to accommodate these while also providing for comfort and fashion. Students will learn about sensors which can measure the actions of the persons who wear them, and about materials manufactured to support digital information transfer. These can be used to create clothing that is “aware” of how it is worn. During the course students will move from conceptual designs to clothing prototypes that must accommodate the physical dimensions, weight, and usability of the mounted devices. The course will work primarily with mock-ups of computing devices and may introduce some functional devices for students to work with.

DES OB 3012
Fashion and Architecture: Clothing Us
This advanced transdisciplinary course will examine the realms of fashion and architecture to analyze the numerous interfaces between the two disciplines. Monument and model, edifice and ornament, structure and anatomy, materials and fabrics, closures and openings, are a few of the parallels and relationships which students will explore through a variety of conceptual design exercises. Class readings, field trips, documentary films, and invited lecturers from the worlds of fashion and architecture will stimulate course discussion. Projects will encourage the use of photography, drawing, draping, and building as methods of exploring, developing, and presenting concepts which bridge these two arenas of practice.

DES OB 3025
Furniture Design II
In this course research investigations of Furniture Design I will challenge and inform the new definitions of furniture. Physical and digital modeling will lead to rigorous exploration of materials and making. Students will develop designs of individual pieces and fabricate them. In depth critique of cultural content, material selection, details and finishing will inform work. Most classes will be held in the shop. Prerequisite: UGDIV 2025

DES OB 3030
Tuning Interfaces
The notion of “tuning” may be defined as a means in which user, object, and environment are brought into a system of exchange and/or correspondence with each other. Taken quite literally, the concept of tuning defines the exchanges and communications that happen between both individuals and the collective when relations are established and mediated through the object. The studio will critically explore and identify, through analysis, various everyday situations mediated through the object and the relationships that are produced between users and objects in both private and public arenas. Key issues that will be used to explore these relationships will be noise, harmony, amplification, and attenuation to name but a few. Students will be asked to develop two projects of two scales based upon their analysis; one domestic and one as an urban object.

DES OB 3110
Fundamentals of Networked Objects
In this studio course the concept of network will be introduced and applied to the design of communication networks for everyday objects. The course implies no previous experience of computers, rather it will introduce students to methods for creating conceptual models of a network, and will introduce the use of the computer to simulate everyday objects communicating on the network model. Forms of communication will be explored based upon object characteristics. Object designs will be modified to include networking, which will impact the properties and behaviors of the objects. Using multiple computers and moving them around, students will study the impact of space on situated networks, and the impact of networks on different spaces. In the final project students will design a space, a network for the space, and the objects that inhabit the space/network, showing how each of three design has a working relationship with the others.