Design to Production: Gaudi inspired door handle.
During my last summer of my undergraduate degree I took a summer abroad studio in Barcelona. What else did we encounter, than the architecture of Antonio Gaudi? While visiting Casa Mila, Casa Batillo, Parc Guell, Sagrada Familia, etc. I discovered something I hadn’t in my experience with American architecture thus far; love.
This is, of course, subjective; but I began to get the sense that Antonio Gaudi was so obsessed with his buildings because he really, really loved them. Stories of him working hand in hand daily with every element touched by every craftsman told a story to me of real passion and love for his buildings.
Gaudi wanted to design something that every visitor and occupant would interact with in a very intimate way. He molded bronze door handles so that they were fit to the geometry of his hand, and “the” hand, so that as a person experiencing the building you would feel that door handle and know that Gaudi thought of you.
That, to me, is love in a building.
And, that, to me, is lost today.
Plotting a course.
In thinking about the design of the design process, it seems to me a bit unoriginal at times. You can find yourself fixated on any number of things, and with a world of possibility at our fingertips thanks to the seemingly limitless capabilities of digital design, but the vastly uncharted capabilities of digital manufacturing, it can be hard to decide where to start, where to end, where to invent, explore, and inspire.
This is a narrative of an exploration that is taking place through the life of a door handle. A door handle that I want people to feel in their hands that I’ve thought about that specific tactile experience. I am, as many designers are, a vary tactile person. We want to represent things with our hands, and we want to have our hands on things that we represent.
With the introduction of digital design, many people feel we have lost that hands-on attachment that inspired architects and designers for millennium. I am arguing, that now more than ever before, we could implement the thoughtfulness of our hand made and crafted artifacts in a much higher degree.
I will be designing with my hands, into a software, into a digital manufacturing medium, and back to my hands for further modifications.
This project is about the ability to send one bespoke piece into every home with a 3D printer, broadening the community of people with designed pieces.
