sample making is emerging as a key area of the design research
in this context, knowledge is created through a fast paced process of thinking
through making samples to investigate new materials, emerging technologies and ways
of working with and through digital fabrication machines
the knowledge created through sample making is distributed across the whole
social technical system of production
each sample, or collection of samples, can be used to gather insights related to
applications, programming, skill, technique, material, and so on
and each of them might be used to explore different possibilities of fabrication
thus embody completely different qualities
unpacking such design processes while appreciating the potentials of each sample
is difficult, and this is reflected in the reporting of such processes
the difficulty of reporting all that happens during a making process
often leads designers to describe their journeys from the perspective of
a final sample as a reached goal
a narrative of how this goal was achieved might include a more detailed account of
the samples or experiments that contribute directly to this success
while others might be unaccounted for or summarized as part of an exploratory phase
rather than discarding such experiments, we proposed, through our previous work
that we look at making as an activity akin to traveling, and in which case, failures
could become opportunities of new journeys
what we mean is that when we travel, we embrace detour
we allow emerging opportunities to affect our plans
when we see something interesting or a cool place to go, we spontaneously change
our plans or, at least if we cannot do that, we will make notes to come back
another time. We'll take photos and we might tell our friends about these places
so why not do the same with our material samples?
these detours could be failures in a project in the sense that they are not
suitable to the main inquiry that we are engaging with at the moment, but they
could also be quick explorations or serendipitous encounters with other makers
that co-inhabit our timeline
by calling them loose ends instead of failures, we suggest that such samples can
be revisited and carried over to new journeys
'loose ends' are the unexpected samples we make when we create time to make things
to collaborate with the social technical system
when we appreciate what's at hand
and really ask what did we make?
In this pictorial, we illustrate this practice through four samples
as cases of such collaborations
these samples were created in opportunistic collaborations alongside
alongside other more goal oriented process
the process of sample making here followed the simple rules from becoming travelers:
create time to make things, collaborate with people, ideas, tools and materials
and be systematic about the documentation
the main intention was to stay lost in the thick of making
letting collaborations happen organically by working in person in the lab
then acting on new opportunities as they presented themselves
in our pictorial, we describe how each of these collaborations took place
through design memoir pages, followed by their corresponding documentation page
we see documentation as an actionable tool for new developments, and documenting as
a lively process of reflection in action that can be refined over time
it can also be revisited over time
the documentation format we propose combines reporting styles, and it seeks to
make explicit the data that would normally be distributed
and often hidden
between digital fabrication machine, digital files and the designer
in doing so, we aim to facilitate revisiting samples within a design journey
so we can understand what role they played in that process, but also to appreciate
each of them as a standalone sample
this pictorial also proposes a new way of sharing sample work in the
pictorial format itself
a vector file of each sample is embedded in the pictorial PDF as an underlayer
of the design memoir pages
we propose this as a way of using our publications as actionable archives
independent of external links or supplemental materials
readers are invited to become travelers by taking our loose ends
forward into new journeys
the workflow for how to extract the vector is detailed in the pictorial
by reflecting on the four design memoirs,
we identified the figure of the fellow traveler
The fellow traveler is a metaphor we use to describe the process of co-inhabiting
the timeline and a journey, while ultimately having divergent goals
as a fellow traveler, we might share the road for a bit
but at some point we go our own separate ways when our paths diverge
in the context of making as a traveler, this means fellow travelers are people,
ideas and machines that are available for new collaborations
in this pictorial, we focus on the process
of making with human fellows and their samples
the four cases of loose ends we shared in this pictorial allowed us to consider the
implications of the practice of making as travelers in three aspects:
samples as outcomes of a community of practice
ways of traveling
and the role of documentation
in these, we recognize the role of the lab as a social technical system that offers
opportunities for new work to flourish
this is both through its infrastructure, by having the machines and certain
basic materials available
but also, and more importantly
the permeability of the community of practice that forms around it
we recognize that being able to sit together and look at each other's work
look through their documentation or open a software file
but then just ask directly questions to the maker
to be an extremely valuable point to this practice
co-presence also relates to different ways of traveling
through our stories, we can see that by being together in the same space
different relationships can emerge between travelers
traveling together could be done by sharing advice or sharing resources
which we called the tour guides
but it could also be really making together
synchronously and asynchronously through turn taking
this leads us to think whether co-presence is the limitation of this practice
could we extend it further?
we believe it might be possible to extend the notion of making as traveling
if we take into account the role of documentation
we hope the documentation and dissemination strategies that we
present through this work support others
in getting more directly engaged with the samples shown here
these and other ways of documenting and sharing should be considered
in order to expand this practice
to conclude, in this pictorial we present four samples and the story behind their
making as contributions to the field of digital craftsmanship
we reflect on the implications of making as travelers
give recommendations for how to nurture a practice of explorative making
and we propose a way of documenting samples so they can be revisited within
and outside the design processes in which they were created
we expect the through the telling and reflection of these stories
we can support opening opportunities for cross pollination through samples
which in turn can lead us in a direction o transforming our labs and communities
into more flexible and permeable systems