Exploring Glass
Nature is a great source of inspiration for both form and function. For an industrial designer it is very important to extract the underlying principles for both form as well as function as per the demand of the project.
The true nature inspired design is all about the abstraction of the principles in nature. It could be the abstraction of a functional principle or the abstraction of a natural form to evoke certain emotions but both kind of abstraction require the understanding of the underlying principle existing in nature.
In this assignment the students were asked to study any natural form and generate forms by studying it thoroughly and interpreting the essence of the form by studyingthe elements of design and their attributes. The essence of co-relation between the selected theme and its functional elements were examined. Drawing and sketching of the form was encouraged to help students to understand the process of form extraction and its simplification. This helped to clarify an understanding of concepts in shape and form, colour and its attributes, sense of scale and proportion.
Having completed these studies through 2 dimension sketches and drawing, the student explored materials such as thermocol, clay and paper to generate 3-dimensional form.
Following this, glass was introduced as the medium of study and discussions were held on its properties and attributes such as opacity, translucency, and transparency; colour and its effect on form. The processes for forming glass such as hand blowing , casting and forming were introduced.
A critical analysis of the forms that the student had finalized was undertaken and finally translated into glass. A glass blowing artist Shri. Rajesh Sharma, was invited from Firozabad for a one week workshop, during which time the students worked with him to translate their form studies exercise exploring glass as the medium of choice.
