Download for Design

Droog continues to explore programmatic design issues. The group's focus has always extended beyond the trends to concentrate on processes, production chains and user applications since it was founded in 1993 by Gijs Bakker and Renny Ramakers. Always conscious of social and market signs and changes, Droog has been analysing goods production methods. The latest project in this sense Design for Download centres on the open-source potential of information technology.

It is not exactly open design, i.e. detailed designs of finished objects freely published online for end users or designers. This form of open design is achieved via the world of FabLabs, public construction laboratories with machinery for 3D printing, CNC cutting and other construction phases, where designers create digital models. Design for Download is a production-chain project that covers everything from the furniture design to its production and distribution and creates a network of professionals and user involvement right from the product configuration stage.

EventArchitectuur and Minale-Maeda developed the first open systems for Design for Download, which allow the production of storage furniture, wardrobes, tables and seating with variable configurations. Users can shape and personalise their own furnishings with intuitive 3D modelling parametric programs. The design file is then sent to a network of local manufacturers and suppliers, who produce the finished object using numerical control machinery. The process is made possible by simple system assembly and the choice of materials, mostly natural wood which can be chosen and sourced locally. Simplicity does not mean just "low-tech" but simplified construction phases and components. For example, the pieces in EventArchitectuur's Box-o-rama and Façades & functions systems in Minale-Maeda's Inside-out fit together without glue or are held together just by nails.

Flexible composition is crucial. Box-o-rama is paradigmatic and the furniture layouts are created by dragging the pieces on the screen (literally the Mac "drag-and-drop" graphic interface) allowing endless possible forms. The design is extremely intuitive and no great computer skills are needed. Limits are set in advance by the software and the program will not allow inconsistent static-performance solutions. Each system offers a different transformation option, ranging from the more flexible Box-o-ramaand Inside-out—featuring multiple size and even type options and in which the same construction system produces tables, storage and seating—to less versatile ones. Minale-Maeda's Wanna-be Wardrobe restricts options to the modular structure of the wardrobe and the choice of fabric covering. Finally, Virtual Florist and Vanity Charms, for the construction of furnishing accessories, express the full alteration potential of rapid prototyping.

The elementary nature of Design for Download is based on a more complex design process tailored for uncontrollable variables such as the final furnishing layout and the work phases. The focus shifts from the end object to the design interface and blurs the boundaries between designer, manufacturer and end user. As in open design, the end object is no longer the work of one person but the result of shared genius and different expertises. The user plays a curatorial and decisional role because objects are made to measure and "to fit".

Design for Download also impacts on accessibility and the goods business. The different management of the whole process cuts the costs of execution, of material transport, which are presumably sourced locally, and of the storage of raw materials and finished products. Similarly, Design for Download revamps the goods purchase process as they are no longer only available from traditional dealers and showrooms. It also reinterprets the more recent phenomenon of online shopping, with more systematic exploitation of digital technologies and the concept of network. Design for Download is backed by the para-ministerial Agentschap NL and Mediagilde, an agency for the development of creative ICT potential. Lucky Holland has easy access to funds for research in the creative industry.
Valentina Croci