Art 1130, 3-D Design                                                
Professor Suzanne Kanatsiz
skanatsiz@weber.edu, 626-6455

Project 3: Non-objective Design: A Combine, Door Modules

Points possible: 15 points

Materials:  2 full-size doors

Scale: large, must be full round, away from the wall.

Methodologies:
Design a structure out of two "door" modules (second-hand, standard residential doors). Deconstruct the doors, and reconstruct them in a sculptural relationship to each other. Use either one or more of the following principles of design: repetition, rhythm, variety, balance, emphasis, and economy. You may choose to select a structural system below from the book: Principles of Three-Dimensional Design".

  1. systematic structure: a logic which governs the relative position, diretion and scale of visual elements of composition
  2. intuitive structure: relies on the viewer's psychological experience of the visual interplay of elements to imbue composition with a sense of order.
  3. symmetric or asymmetric: mirror-like or intentional contrast of form, or breaks rules of symmetry by varying elements on plane of symmetry..
  4. gradation and intervals of change: employs rhythm repeated throughout the composition with inervals of change in a progressive series sets a path for the eye to follow. For example, forms may grow smaller bit by bit, or gradually shift their shape or color.
  5. modular proportion: A proportional system that limits incremental changes of scale to a single unit of measure.
  6. anomaly within systematic structure: a region of randomness or disruption in a highly repetitive pattern.
  7. randomness and chance, order with unpredictability: randomness lacks not order, but predictability, i.e., nature's richness it incorporates into its ordering. The changes needed to adapt and diversity, to learn and evolve, could not occur if nature were locked into a predetermined and unvarying pattern.

You will be working with an object that has been designed and standardized for uniform application. The primary focus of the project is for you to alter and connect the door modules into an exciting design that explores and illustrates concepts of design. Your "doors" will be removed from the function they normally have, and will become works of art that illustrate how design principles can enrich visual experience. The final sculptural form can be a series of fragments, or a monolith, or reconfigured into new modules that command movement or visual weight, or any other alteration of form you can come up with. Your decision-making and skill in carrying out your ideas in to form/space will either contribute or detract from your initial design. The form must stand on it's own without surface embellishments.

Contemporary design rethinks if not fully rejects predictability as either the prerequisite or the goal of order. Good design discovers rather than imposes order, and is generative of the most complete spatial expression of an object's ideology and function. Designer's succeed when they have the ability to relinquish control when necessary, and to relax the system to meet the goals of the design.(Stephen Luecking, Principles of Design)

Evaluation:
The evidence of time well spent on the project must be visible. Innovative design, and how you select to change the door module into a successful, unified sculpture. How form and space work together to illustrate solid design principles. The organizational system employed is readily understood, and is visually interesting and well thought out. There is integrity in the overall craftsmanship by which the piece is made.

Artists/Designers to look at: Doris Salcedo, Beverly Pepper, Robert Morris, Tadao Ando, Santiago Calatrava

Vocabulary:
Balance
Continuity
Contrast
Economy
Emphasis
Integration
Join
Module
Pattern
Proportion
Repetition
Rhythm
Symmetry
Transition
Unity
Variety