The overarching theme of ‘The Nature Disconnect’ is something I have felt strongly about for some time now. I feel as a society we are becoming less mindful of the environment and turning a blind eye to the problems that we are causing to the earth.

To begin the project I decided to carry over my theme from the first half of the module, where i explored ‘What Is Nature?’ I used the opportunity to explore different disciplines in the first half of the module to question ‘What is Nature?, How much are we accountable for?, How to bring experiences of nature into our modern society and How to increase awareness and to promote change. I felt like I had much more to explore with this and wanted to study it more closely under my chosen discipline.

Within the First week of the four-week project, after carrying out research, I quickly identified that I wanted to explore Decay vs Nature. This came out of looking into land pollution caused by our disposable society. Ever since the birth of Mass Manufacture with Henry Ford in the early 1900’s western culture has become reliant on having what they want ready when they need it, and it’s this over reliance that has caused mass pollution and extreme damage to the earth and nature. This, with lack of a better word, angers me. I feel strongly about this and wanted to design something that showed some aspect of this.

At the time I felt like I could easily create a product that explored that, but in reflection feel like I could have strayed away from my personal motives to create something that fit the brief more closely. But at the same time, I’m happy I explored something I feel strongly about.

My idea was to create a design that explored the Decay of Man-made objects vs the Decay of Nature. It would use materials that would otherwise would be sent to land fill and explore how they decay/ don’t decay vs the short lifespan of natural objects in an effort to highlight how unnatural our products are and how negative their impact is on the earth. However, this idea lent itself very closely to exhibition design – something that I hate as a product designer. I feel like it appeals to a very exclusive group of people and strays closer to art than product and because of this was doubting whether I wanted to continue with the idea. However, I was guided towards some designers to investigate. I looked into Dunne & Raby and their book speculative design. Out of this my ideas about exhibition design hadn’t changed much but It did open me up to the purpose of it. I realised why it is a relevant aspect of design, as products can be designed to answer questions and to provoke emotional reactions, and this lent itself very well to my idea and concept.

When carrying out that research I realised I was caught at a strange crossroads with this project, it was my personal feelings about the environment that was making me drive me idea forward however it was my personal feelings about exhibition design that nearly halted the project. That’s something I’ve not experienced in my short design career before, and hopefully I will know how to deal with it if it ever happens again.

I carried on with my concept and began to design the product. I used research into pollutants to inform the materials, and research into natural and unnatural shapes to create the form. I had created a number of different models but settled on an Idea involving concrete that allowed a flower to rest against it and this would allow the spectators to watch how the flower decayed against the un-changing state of the concrete. It was at this point that the Lecturer suggested creating a design that had greater contrast between the ‘rubbish’ and the nature. I quickly realised that this was a good idea,  and think that I should have seen this myself. I was too wrapped up in the idea of making something that looked ‘pretty’ and this perhaps blinded me to the fact that it wasn’t re-affirming my message.

I quickly changed my idea, this time I created a cage that housed rubbish. I’m happy that I made the change as it meant I could expand more on the exhibition experience. The exhibition would be shared on social media and tour around local community centres. This now meant that I could change what rubbish was in the product by putting rubbish in from the local area to make the message more relevant.

I personally feel like my final design is a little under whelming and the message deserved something greater to convey it across. I could have done with a few more weeks and a larger budget to achieve it – or what is more likely I could have managed my time better. The main thing I have taken from this project is to not let my personal motives control a project too much. Use them to guide where to research and let the research inform the design. This project also helped to open me up to new avenues of product design, it made me realise that there is a lot more aspects of design that I have very little knowledge in and not to have preconceived ideas about them and to be open to explore them.