Hasta La Ideas

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pemBest Made Company Axes./em/p

pThere is a unique borrowing from the rural by the urban in design, both past and the presentmdash;Castiglioni’s a href=”http://www.zanotta.it/Catalog/ShowMuseumItem.asp?Area=museoCatCodeName=MuseoCollectionID=19ProductID=221PageNumber=1MenuItemID=3″Mezzadro Chair/a for Zanotta and a href=”http://bestmadeco.com/”Best Made Company Axes/a exemplify this. At their roots, these projects exude a sense of self-sufficiency, informed by a romanticized sense of rural autonomy and resourcefulness. Still, objects that can provide the means to this self-reliance expose agencymdash;the ability to deliberately and directly affect one’s environment in an undisciplined, creative manner. /p

pEncouraging agency has a three-fold effect. First, increased resourcefulness and self-reliance may help drive the ideological change necessary for “green” design to have the most impact. Second, it may encourage a growth of individual entrepreneurship in our slow economy. Third, such an investigation will lead designers to look for inspiration and opportunities where self-reliance is (or was) highly valuedmdash;the rural United States, for examplemdash;and to produce work that enters into underexplored, unique corners of American culture./p

pimg alt=”milkstool.jpg” src=”http://www.core77.com/blog/images/milkstool.jpg” width=”468″ height=”541″ class=”mt-image-none” style=”” //p

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pemStaffan Holm Milk Stool, top. Patricia Urquiola Tub and Elizabeth Leriche Concept, bottom./em/p

pTrends derived from the rural vernacular perpetuate a romantic fascination with the self-sufficient lifestyle. Farm life, for example, implies such activities as milking cows, hunting fowl, and working in fields. As a response, designers have entertained fascinations with milking stools, shotguns, selvage denim, and rubber boots. These objects exude an air of autonomy; in the case of the Wellington-style boot: an image of the landed gentry. It is important to note that, unlike these projects, this is not a call for more “agrarian chic.” Instead, rural areas should be examined just as they are (for better or worse)./p

pIn an attempt to discover how rural habits of mind and making could inform a design practice, I’ve been investigating the qualities of agency in a project entitled emObjects of the Rural Vernacular/em./pa href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/featured_items/the_rural_design_vernacular_objects_that_expose_agency_by_gabriel_hargrove__16880.asp”(more…)/a
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