Nowadays, I am more attracted to things that are unintentionally designed. Or as Naoto Fukasawa and Jasper Morrison put it, "Super Ordinary" objects.
So it is by chance that I came across this "Product" two days ago.
This object was discovered at a Foreign labour "hostel". "Designed" from a purely functional point of view for a single purpose. It is a barbel with cement as weight. Probably made by either a vain or fitness conscious Bangladeshi using whatever he can scrap after a days work at the construction site. The cement was cast with a pail as evident from the shape of the weights. The barbel is simply a piece of metal plunged into the cement before it set.
Simple but it works.
There was some evidence that this was a second set made judging from the pile of rubble infront of the weights. Perhaps the initial set's cement were not mixed properly and it crumbled when dropped. Evidence of product improvement on the second set. Evolution of thought process already in progress.
It reminds me of my Design History lessons as a student. At the turn of the 20th century during the industrial revolution where Design came into importance. The first designs were mostly mass produced everyday items like pots and pans stamped out of sheet metal powered by a steam engine. Design was used as a tool or skill to serve the mass population and not the elitist snobbish crap that it is today.
Seeing that piece of object with the accompanying home made bench which was also scrap together with "parts" has energised my design thought. It made me wanna go back to my roots as a designer and design with a purpose, a real purpose. The Modern masters were right as always, as Le Corbusier put it plainly, Less is more.
