‘Meaningful Ornament asks the question ‘What is the potential of ornament today?
Some artists and designer are producing what I describe as ‘Meaningful Ornament but the overwhelming purpose of many environmental graphics today, is to sell us products and services.
I believe that ornament can be a beneficial communicative force and my goal is to expand the rhetoric of ornament.
White walled interiors are everywhere. The interior designer has a unique opportunity to activate these surfaces, developing images to abstract information, to stimulate reflection without becoming vacuously superfluous or aggressively dogmatic.
Meaningful Ornament began with my observation that technology gives us easy access to information today, from scientific data to poetry. Working in Interior Design, I focus on the acres of white walls that are maintained in our offices, entertainment venues and homes.
Scientists have provided valuable and urgent data accompanied by visual illustrations essential to an awareness of changes in our ecology. I am working with this data to present the information produced by the National Air and Space Administration (NASA) and National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as meaningful ornament, ornament that draws our attention, not only for its scientific significance, but for its abstract aesthetic. A new attitude towards the potential of those acres of white walls will no longer be co-opted by the rhetoric of commerce and in my meaningful ornament design work I considered many subjects but felt that issues related to climate change were the most salient at the moment.
Abstraction: Fractal Corridor
A fractal is defined in mathematics as ‘a curve or geometric figure, each part of which has the same statistical character as the whole.’ I determined after looking at the text, icons, geometries, and figurative options, that fractals were a good starting place in my consideration of the use of Abstraction in designing interior ornament. Abstract ornament is the easiest to read, as it is presented without additional references. I designed the interior using the natural phenomena of the fractal, to contrast what I saw as a disconnect between modern life and nature.
Illusion: States of Water: Reflection, Movement, Submersion, and Drought, Color and Perception
Exhibited with NASA Global Maps that record accentuated heat increase from 1880 to the present.
This Illusion Design Proposal is focused on the psychology of color and sequencing. The color studies are proposals for three adjacent spaces: Corridor, Waiting room, and Classroom. They each involve different exposure time which also impacts the users’ perception of the interior. The painted walls use photorealistic images of water that to different degrees create the illusion of water in many states: reflection movement, submersion and the absence of water, drought.
Narrative: Local Rising Sea Level Projection, Abstraction of NOAA Data Visualization Map
The Narrative Study is situated in a subfloor space, without natural light. The room is planned as a lounge or workplace environment. The pattern used is derived from a map describing Rising Sea Level by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
