There were many different elements of this video that coincided with design topics that I am interested in. The first was the idea of limitations leading to innovation. Janet Echelman was in India on a Fulbright scholarship and was supposed to hold an exhibition, but her paints never arrived. She was forced to try a different medium, and as the village she was in was had a large population of fishermen, she was inspired to try to create sculptures out of fishnet. Fishnet is now her primary medium, and she has created massive sculptures for cities all over the world.
Another element of the speech that I found very interesting was her description on the fusion of traditional crafts and technology and engineering that is needed to create each sculpture. These enoromous figures needed to be modelled before they could be constructed, and special computer simulation programs had to be created in order to bring these wonderful, organic shapes to realization.
I also was very interested in what she had to say about designing for nature. Most of her sculptures are outdoors and exposed to the elements, so wind is an important consideration in each design. Response to wind is modelled for each new sculpture, so that the wind can be used to animate the netting, causing fluid motion.
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