PROJECT Found Object
Introduction
Our first project uses identical small found objects in large quantities to construct
a new larger form; transforming mundane everyday materials to reveal something greater
than themselves while retaining its identity. The form itself results from the process
in which they are assembled and the space they are placed in. This is your first
introduction to the formal conversation between an object and the space it resides
in. Our primary goal is to push the limits of your creativity within a given design
problem. It is the first step in conceptual thinking, approaching a problem from many
directions and not settling for the obvious solution first. It will also introduce you
to the physicality (form) in three-dimensional work and explores the form’s qualities
of volume and mass using combinations of materials placed in unexpected circumstances.
Ryan and Trevor Oakes, Tom Friedman, Untitled, 1995.
Untitled. 1000 Matchsticks 2019 Pencils. 11 x 14 x 11 inches.
Learning Objectives
Identify and Describe | Students will define the terms and principles associated with the
elements of three-dimensional design.
Creative Process | Students will experience conceptualization (design process) and pace
(time on task).
Skills | Students will demonstrate the ability to develop solutions to design problems
through creative limitations.
Materiality | Students will explore material qualities that could contribute in terms of
use and interpretation.
Spatial Sensitivity | Students will evaluate how form interacts with its space.
Source Found Object Project Materials
Find an object that is small, inexpensive, and found in large quantities. They must be
exact duplicates. Identical in color, texture, pattern, etc.
(twist-ties, pipe cleaners, plastic utensils (forks/sporks/spoons), solo cups, and
straws are not allowed)
Part 1 Getting Started:
Exploring Potential and Possibilities
What am I doing again?
Creating a new organic form using multiples of a found object that stresses
horizontality or verticality in a site-specific indoor location.
What size do I make it?
Your final form should be a minimum of 12” in either direction. Keep it manageable in
relation to the size and quantity of found objects you have available.
Creative Limitations
• Stress either Horizontality or Verticality
• no stacking
• no arrangements of objects. They must have a physical connection to each other. You
should be able to pick up the form and move it without it falling apart.
• find interesting ways to connect these objects to each other without any mechanical
fasteners or glue.
Experimentation and Play
Explore your options and exhaust the possibilities. Start with a couple of found object
options. The first idea is typically not the best. Start exploring how these found
objects join together. Play. Remember, you will need a lot of this found object for the
final version (50+).
Push beyond the obvious solution. This is an exercise in conceptual thinking and
critical/creative problem-solving. Move on to speculating how you can modify or combine
these objects in new innovative ways.
For some of you, consider these:
1. the need to return to an earlier stage in the process.
2. make a conscious choice to take risks and try new things.
Connections
Keep in mind that these found objects must connect together in some way. Explore a
variety of solutions without using mechanical fasteners (nails, screws, rivets, etc) or
adhesives (glue, construction cement, epoxy). Cold connections don’t require a fastener,
you may alter the object in some way or create pressure to connect it. If the connection
is visible, make it part of the design. Utilize this repetition to move the viewer
around the form. Allow the way you connect objects and the site-specific location to
create the form.
How to approach the Creative Process
The first step is acceptance. Be willing to make the problem your own. Invest 100% of
your efforts into researching, understanding, and solving the problem. The second is
the most important. Remove analysis and judgmental thinking; it inhibits creative and
innovative thinking. Start with what you know, research what you don’t. Be willing to
play; don’t screen anything with judgment until the end of the discovery/experimentation
process. Mistakes and accidents are the best teachers. They expand your vocabulary and
experience. Nothing is accomplished on the first try and everything has been done before.
How can you learn from the past and reconstitute it into something new and innovative?
Talent doesn’t exist, everything can be learned if you care about it enough, invest the
time, and dedicate yourself to it.
Part 2 Prototyping:
Installation Space
Installation Location
Begin to consider an indoor space to place your final form. The type of placement
(hanging, draping, leaning, or sitting) and its interrelationship with space will also
influence the sense of movement in a (vertical or horizontal direction.
Finding potential in something is a direct reflection of your ability to find it in
yourself. How far you push your creative limits reflects in the work you create. If you
think back to your earliest impulses to create objects, you were left with no other
choice than to stack blocks. With all our initial ideas, take a moment to reflect on
where they originate. How can you move forward past the obvious and challenge the
materiality of the found object itself?
After you experiment and play with the objects, what do you imagine this looking like as
an organic form based on their connections? What found object is the best solution to
your design problem?
Indoor Location & Footprint
Think back to the Space and Body Questionnaire and the Scale Ruler Exercise. Your design
is nothing more than an organic, non-representational form. Like your body, it occupies
space. Think about your workspace occupying the room. How does it contact the ground?
How do you contact the ground when standing? When you lay down? What are the contact
points between you and that surface you are interacting with?
Further Questions to Consider
• Are these connections crucial to unify the form or modify its interpretation?
• Do the connections move the eye around the form?
• Does it only consider itself as an object?
• Does it consider or interact with the space around it?
• Does this location in combination with the form create horizontally or verticality?
• Considerations for three-dimensions
• Material - Is your found object Lightweight or Dense? Do you want to try to deny this
quality or celebrate it?
• Physical Forces - Think about how your form contacts the ground, minimal contact can
make it appear Weightless or a lot of contact can make it appear as it is reacting to
Gravity.
• Footprint - Does the form appear Stable or Unbalanced?
• Color/Value of the Material - does your found object appear Light or Heavy? How are
you going to utilize this perception?
• Material State - can you make a Stiff material appear Flexible or vice versa?
• Density - is the form you are envisioning Solid or Hollow?
Part 3 Fabrication:
Constructing Final Form
Sketching, Ideation, and Titles
Drawing is inseparable from conceptualization. Now that you have a lot of experience
with the found object, sketch a final rendering of what you imagine your final form
looks like in the space it occupies. Use one of your final prototypes to study how
light reacts to the form. The drawing style is up to you. Use shading, line weight, and
color to clarify the space it occupies. A drawing can be any combination of materials,
photographs, collage, etc.
Begin to consider a title for your work. How can this title assist or influence the
interpretation of horizontality or verticality?
Final Fabrication
Remember, focus on its projection into space, either horizontality or verticality, and
its placement in your intended location. These are non-representational forms, they
shouldn’t make reference to anything found in nature. Let the found object and its
interrelationship to space dictate the final form. Make its form a sincere expression of
its character.
Reflection
What are the goals of the project; what is it intended to accomplish? What are my goals?
What do I hope to achieve through this project?
What are the instructor’s expectations?
What are the project’s limits in terms of scale, materials, methods of execution,
presentation, time, etc.?
Can I restate the problem in such a way that it incorporates all of these goals and
limitations-the instructor’s and my own?
A Review of Design and Form Language
Three-dimensional Form
Without form, space is a featureless void, but without space, form tends to become mere-
ly constrictive chunks of matter. Space activates and defines form, while form activates
and defines space.
Elements of Form
Point, line, plane, and volume are the conceptual elements of form. These elements have
no actual physical substance. They are ideas, abstract tools the human mind uses to
analyze, define, and structure space.
Consider these Spatial Principle
These four principles govern how a form occupies space. These principles determine
both the relation of the form to the space that contains it and to the other forms in
composition with it.
Positive/Negative
Empty space can possess just as much form through its containment of implied volume.
Position
Position sets the location of an element within a compositional space and relative to
other elements in that space. It governs whether, for instance, an object should be
placed nearer the ceiling or the floor of a room, in the middle of a room or crammed
into a corner; whether in front of or behind another object, above or below, within
or without, close to or distant to that other object.
Direction
Direction, too, is relative. It measures the angle of an element within a space and
toward other elements in a composition. The primary orientation of a form in space is
experienced with reference to gravity. Horizontal and vertical orientations conform
to the constraints of gravity and, as such, evoke a sense of stability. Diago-
nal orientations, by contrast, convey dynamism, a sense of movement free from the
constraints of gravity. The secondary orientation of a form defines its direction in
relation to other forms in a composition. Two forms may be perpendicular, skewed,
or parallel to one another. Perpendicular and parallel forms suggest a sense of
planning, a more plotted composition than an arrangement of skewed forms.
Scale
Scale is the size of a form as compared to the space containing it, to another form,
or to the human body. Since a human being is the ultimate user/observer of most
design, the size of the average human is the prime determinate of scale. The three
major categories of scale for most design-object, human, and monumental-relate to
our bodies and draw psychological connotations from that relationship. Roughly,
object scale refers to designs that can be held, and therefore controlled, in one’s
hand; human-scale suggests designs equivalent in size to one’s body; and monumental
designs, by virtue of towering over their human observers, tend to dominate their
immediate environment. Miniature scale describes a level yet smaller than the object
scale, while environmental and geographic scales refer to constructions that fill the
landscape or are measured in geographic units. The measure of the scale of one form
relative to another is termed proportion.
Luecking, Stephen. Principles of Three-Dimensional Design: Objects, Space, and Meaning. Upper Saddle River,
NJ: Prentice Hall, 2002.
needs improvement
satisfactory
excellent
no credit
good
Grading Criteria : (1) Project Execution
Creative Process
1) Conceptualization. Exhibits creative and innovative thinking
beyond obvious choices. Takes risks during the ideation process.
Connections are formed between objects in a creative way.
Skills
1) Form stresses verticality or horizontality.
2) Form exhibits mass, volume, or both.
3) Found object doesn’t lose its identity within the non-
representational form.
4) Contact with the ground plane (footprint) is considered.
Materiality
1) Challenges materiality to create something new that considers the
three-dimensional space it occupies more than itself.
