final presentation for my thess at Parsons The New School for Design

1. DESIGN FROM THE INVISIBLE
Fall 2011 Thesis presentation
prof. Cynthia Lawson and Chris Prentice
Parsons The New School for Design

2. HELLO My name is
ALVARO SOTO
a PRODUCT DESIGNER
Who loves to
Make things

3. Why and how to make things

7. Digital Craft

8. Complexity does not mean returning to the baroque, it means that the material can be transformed in
different ways and many times without affecting its cost of production. This means, product designers
can create in an a priori yet flexible and cost effective manner

9. The transformation of the material is the design decision

10. In what ways will the product design process, particularly in small local production change if the de-
signer utilizes ambient data from the environment to inform the design decisions and formal aspects
of the objects he/she designs?

11. How will they fabricate these objects? what new techniques are necessary in order to
achieve cost effective design iteration and complexity?

13. using ambient sound as the data source for the design decision of all the pieces in order to create a
conceptual framework for all of them.

14. Ceramic Pendant project

15. Street sound visualization

16. Dinner with friends light fixture

17. Use of data as an attraction force to transform material.

18. Bench project
Pick-up sound recorder

19. Carousel

20. Folkloric latin group

21. The ring project

22. The designer no longer needs to sketch details
and defined shapes,he needs to be sensitive to
algorithmic exploration and variation.
The designer needs to be open to
programmable complexity.
The designer no longer needs to imply but he
can work in an explicit yet flexible manner.
The designer now has the ability to be
interactive and generative.

24. Cartier Harry Winston Tiffanys & Co

25. Frozen Exhibition Amsterdam
Curated by Marius Watz

26. Nerveous system

27. Next Steps
Create a wearable piece and change data from sound to biometric information
Continue the ring project
explore concepts for a furniture piece

28. Concept
A practice based research in form and fabrication techniques for product designers, working in local
production and exploring computational methods as the source of information and inspiration in the
design process.
thank you