Presentation Reflection

Looking back on the presentation on Tuesday, retrospectively I see many ways I could have improved it. As always more time always allows for more resolved outcomes, but seriously, I think it's difficult to encompass this sort of project in the space of 6.40 minutes. There is so much research that goes into the building of the scenario its difficult to bring an outsider like a guest critiquer into the same mind frame as the tutor and myself.
Apart from that I think a little more preparation in the writing and practising of my speech would have resulted in a more understandable and succinct presentation as I did become out of sync with my slides and the nerves had me stumbling a little.
Resolution and readability of some images were rushed and this came down to time and difficulties with my computer program of choice (3Ds Max). A number of times the program 'crashed' and renders failed and it got to the point where it was most important to produce out put images whether they were high quality or not. I just needed something to help me explain and describe the scenario and the solution I had come up with. 

The feed back I received I felt was fair and mostly positive, the negative points were ones I was mostly already aware of. But again touching on those points didn't make the 'cut' in the final presentation due to time constraints. 

The good thing about keeping a blog is that you have a record of your design decisions and its easily accessible so those few points you skip or skim over in the presentation you can see where they came from and why ultimately you produced your final design in this way.

I leave this course feeling optimistic about the outcomes of this final design hoping that I managed to impart my hopes and ideas for the future of Brisbane and the World, to my tutor, the guest critiquer and my fellow students.

     

A1 Summary Poster

Final Presentation

Today, what we are faced with are faceless products, mass produced, all unchanging and the same. But this does not satisfy us. We crave products that suit us, ones that are specifically customised to meet our needs. 

So in the future this is what we demand. Customised products that meet our needs specifically. But, this isn't enough to satisfy us though... we want to know where our products come from. Gone are the days of globalisation.

So Charlie wakes up of a morning, rising to products built for her, locally, with reduced embodied energy meeting her every need. 

She checks her phone for the weather, it fits precisely in the palm of her hand. The phone matches her style, its sleek and thin, fits in her purse without bulging her custom built bag.

Charlie disposes of the phone when it no longer meets her needs. But what then happens to Charlies waste? Landfill? Not in the future, not anymore.

In the future, there is a closed loop system that has been adopted. New parasitical residential towers have invaded the city centre, and for this project more specifically the current Myer centre. These residents produce waste, we all do, even in the future... But at this point that is where the similarities between now and the future end when it comes to waste management. 

Following waste disposal the materials go through a crushing process - a waste disassembly... followed by a sorting process to then be either be stored for future use or immediately be re-used in the manufacturing processes of the future retail enterprises. But how is this achieved?  

Looking at the heart - the wonder of biological systems come into fruition. Our microscopic cells contract and pump our life sustaining blood through our body. It goes through filtration systems within the the body and recycles to keep us alive.

Even more fascinating is the lysosome, it contains enzymes that break down waste materials into their constituent components, which are in turn used to build new proteins.
Moving away from traditional industrial processes and approaches, bio - technology will advance and nano bots will be enlisted to fulfil and replicate biological processes.  

Nano bots are so small they can rip atoms apart just like the lysosome. Breaks down the waste materials into their constituent components. The nano - pit adopts these biological processes to become the new solution to waste management in the future. The nano-pit pumps like a heart, and breaks down materials using nano bots to replicate the lysosome.
Coming down the inlet 'artery' there are protrusions which 'crush' waste to a smaller size, the pumping action sucks the material into the first chamber. Breaking down further through the use of bacteria, the waste then flows into the main chamber for the nano bots to disassemble to then be evacuated into the third chamber to be sorted and then released out of the outlet 'artery' of the nano - pit.  

This newly broken down material needs to be moved and stored for future use in the manufacturing of new products on the retail front. Like in Wall-E I gained inspiration from how the robots ran on tracks in robot 'highways'. Additionally looking at wineries material storage was dealt with similarly, stacking the materials in containers for easy access to be moved to the 3D printers.

Once the robots have the newly broken down materials they move them to where they will be located with other resources of the same material types. They move both in the horizontal and vertical planes moving in the existing voids of the Myer centre up and down between levels.

The nano - pits occupy the existing voids of the myer centre hanging from the ceiling people occupying the building, as a shop owner or a customer, share a strong visual connection with the nano - pit. 

Not only is it a functional aspect of the building in the future, it is a symbolic representation of how society has moved forward in its philosophies and how they wish to function as a society.

So today we act out the cradle to grave design paradigm. Taking what we want from the limited resources that are available, using them and then disposing of them. Next to no recycling occurs and if it is, it's not true recycling with most waste being left for decomposition taking hundreds if not thousands of years to be integrated into natural systems.  

The future however, will rely on enacting the cradle to cradle design paradigm of the closed loop system - combing the biosphere and the techno-sphere's product life cycles to reach equilibrium in how we as a society manage waste.

So Charlie goes to the shop owner, an industrial designer, tells them just what she wants, a new product to match her every need. The designer then 3D prints the product for Charlie on the spot ready for use.
Charlie is in love with her new custom built product.

When this product no longer meets her needs she disposes of it.

The Future of waste management is the Nano - Pit, it is a functional solution as well as a symbolic representation of the societal changes in attitudes towards waste.

Renders that didn't make the final presentation

  

Presentation plan

 

The presentation will be broken into three sections, context, content and control. The context will show the life of Charlie (first 5 slides), the modern citizen of Brisbane going about their everyday life stopping on the disposal of a product. 

In the content section (10 slides) I will switch to a diagram of how the waste management system will work illustrating the closed loop system. a section of the nano pit will then be shown followed by a diagram of how hearts pump blood opening and closing valves. I then move on to speak about bio mimicry in the use of breaking down materials as opposed to traditional methods, switching to a diagram of the nano pit moving material. After the material is broken down i explain how it is collected and stored, switching to an image explaining people and robot circulation and there cross over interactions folowed by a render illustrating the interaction. I then depict the first person experience and presence of the design. 

Finally i close with control (5 slides), i look at the difference between open and closed loop systems and switch to 'back to the begining' shoping the purchase of a 3D printed product and the eventual disposal. 

First person experience

When addressing the criteria for scenes (presence & identity and the first person experience) i approached this the the notion of cradle to cradle in mind. The people who use the space will be directly interacting with the design. The nano pits hang in the voids of the exiting building, capturing and processing waste, this allows for a vivid association between the consumer nature of the society and the processes their waste undergoes to complete the cradle to cradle life cycle. 

This relates to the future scenario directly in that people live more locally, are more conscious of product life-cycles and where their waste ends up. The advancement of technologies, nano technologies and bio mimicry technologies, has allowed for the shift from open systems (cradle to grave) to closed loop systems (cradle to cradle). People want to know how there products are made, where, when, with what and, in the new Myer centre, the future people will get to answer all these questions with a glance at the nano pits. Voyeristically people get to experience this system and be reassured that they are no longer leading a destructive lifestyle.

     

Additional the spaces have been reconfigured to allow for this shift in societal norms. As a response to not needing space for the storage and display of products, shop spaces have been reduced, floor space has been opened up to become circulation and storage space. 

The new shop arrangement is more market style with shop owners (industrial design professionals) being commissioned to design customised products on the spot to be 3D printed. 

The materials for these products come from the nano pit and collected by the robots and taken to either storage or shops to be utilised for 3D printing. The robots run on designated tracks which shares circulation space with users, again building the connection between purchase and disposal of products. 

Nano - Pit Detail

This section of the nano - pit shows the details of the inner workings. There are two 'arteries' one inlet for the broken down waste materials and one out let for reclaimed constituent materials of the original waste. In addition within these 'arteries' are a organic teeth like protrusions which act as the organic (natural) equivalent of the crushing component of the closed loop system. 

In the nano - pit there are three chambers which the materials pass through, the one on the left is the first chamber that the waste enters (occurring through the contraction motion, opening and closing the valves of the inlet 'artery'). In the first chamber further breaking down of the material occurs at a cellular level through the use of microbes. Once sufficiently broken down, through the contraction motion, the material moves into second and largest chamber where the nano bots reside, this is the final chamber where disassembly occurs. The nano bots rip every bit of material into their constituent components (such a iron, copper gold ect.) and once this occurs the chamber contracts and moves the raw materials into the third and final chamber. In this chamber the materials are sorted and discharged through the outlet 'artery' to be collected by the robots and distributed to either storage or the the 3D printers for retail use.