Tag: Design Books

Not Just ‘Looking’ at Design

Launched in October 2013, “Science of the Secondary” promises to map an “atlas of things not yet discovered.” | ATELIER HOKO
Launched in October 2013, “Science of the Secondary” promises to map an “atlas of things not yet discovered.” | ATELIER HOKO

Many of us experience the world primarily through our eyes. We are quick to make judgements based on how things look, while considering how they work is of secondary importance. It’s as if we can only see when we actually have four other senses: smell, hearing, taste, and touch.

“Science of the Secondary” is an on-going series of bi-annual booklets by design studio Atelier HOKO. The series aims to expand our narrow view of the world through a close examination of the everyday things that surround us. As if by teaching us how to read a new language, the first issue begins with the apple, taking the reader step-by-step through the seemingly mundane experience of eating this fruit. The Singapore-based studio (led by Alvin Ho and Clara Koh) draws out a series of unexpected insights that makes you chomp through the 44-page booklet in one sitting.

What is the role of each finger when holding an apple? Does the sound of crunching into an apple affect its taste? Why do we unconsciously bite into an apple in sequence? HOKO considers these questions and gives its answers by way of beautiful photography, illustrations, and short captions bound together in a handy comics-sized publication.
In May of this year, the duo released the second issue that looked at the cup and questioned the act of drinking. Alvin sums it up nicely in the introductory page:

“…but what does it mean to drink? Do we drink with our skin when the hands are hugging the cup? Are we drinking with our body posture while sipping earl grey in a team room? Are the ears drinking as we take each sip of the coffee? Can we consider the act of licking one’s lips drinking? Does the nose know that it is drinking as it hovers above the caramelised milk froth sitting atop a very large cup of coffee…?”

Although it may sound esoteric, Science of the Secondary’s content is meant to keep the general reader intrigued with plain, short captions, and by borrowing the visual language of science publications. Informative diagrams and photographic sequences give the duo’s observations and thoughts the weight of scientific objectivity.

More than just lessons about objects, one comes out of reading this series with a more mindful view of the world. Try closing your eyes for a moment to “see” — that’s how much more there is to the world than what lies in front of our eyes.

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Written for Elizabeth Spiers and Chappell Elison’s Online Publishing class at D-Crit.

The People’s City

Imagine the city as a space for borrowing instead of buying, says architecture studio MOTOElastico in their book “Borrowed City”. | MOTOElastico
Imagine the city as a space for borrowing instead of buying, says architecture studio MOTOElastico in their book “Borrowed City”. | MOTOElastico

The city is often portrayed as a playground for the rich and powerful: the real estate developer, the urban planner, the starchitect. From their point-of-view (often high up in skyscrapers), ordinary city inhabitants look nothing more than specks amidst the glitzy urban skyline.

Two recent books from Asia take us down to the streets of the city instead. Both publications are fascinating collections of hyper-local vernacular designs that demonstrate how two Asian cities are built from the ground-up.

For the cover of “Borrowed City”, graphic designer Fritz K. Park reappropriated the visual language of the yellow-and-black striped street barricades commonly found in Seoul.
For the cover of “Borrowed City”, graphic designer Fritz K. Park reappropriated the visual language of the yellow-and-black striped street barricades commonly found in Seoul.

 

Borrowed City (2013) is a tour through Seoul by MOTOElastico. The architecture studio has been documenting how private citizens use public space for their personal benefit in the capital since 2009. Turning sidewalks into stores with just a few baskets of goods, planting vegetables along public staircases, or ‘parking’ on the roadside to have a picnic lunch — these are just some of the book’s examples of how citizens have built their own spaces in the city; each intervention is photographed and enhanced with 3-D models. By reading such acts as “borrowing” as opposed to “buying” the city, the studio (headed by Italians Marco Bruno and Simone Carena) makes a case for how the considerate use of public spaces by citizens can help build a more participatory and inclusive city.

Siu King-chung’s lesser designs (2013) showcases similar projects from Hong Kong. Inspired by 19th century English designer and critic William Morris’s idea of the “Lesser Arts”, Siu created a book that celebrates the design wisdom of ordinary citizens. Beginning with a typical Hong Kong home and ending out on the city’s colourful neon-lit streets, the associate professor at the city’s PolyU Design points out the variety of anonymous designs in everyday life through photographs. The simple Chinese and English captions prove how design and creativity are not exclusively for professionals — “Lesser designs” for Siu are not lousier, just less obvious.

What makes both books particularly precious is that they offer another view of city life — one that is often transient and threatened by rapid urban development. Whether it is in Seoul, Hong Kong or any of the growing cities in Asia, “modern” solutions are increasingly introduced with the promise of order, efficiency, and a better living environment. But by re-framing seemingly chaotic street life through smart citizen interventions, both books offer a more humanistic reading of city living that begs a closer look.

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Written for Elizabeth Spiers and Chappell Elison’s Online Publishing class at D-Crit.

Science of the Secondary: Apple by Atelier HOKO

Have you eaten an apple without a sequence? Can you recognize one if it is upside down? How different would an apple taste without a crunch when you bite into it?

These are just some of the unusual questions raised in a new booklet about the apple, and how its ‘design’ shapes our experience of eating it.

Authors Clara Koh and Alvin Ho were curious about what eating an apple entailed besides its taste. Through observation, the duo who work under the studio name Atelier HOKO  found that the fruit’s less noticed features — or what they term “secondary” — are just as important too.

➜ Read the rest at art4d (Issue 210)