Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Why Not Mix People Like Paint To Get Them To Collaborate? That's What This Table Does
Co.Design | business + design: The painting palette is a wonderful design. An amorphous blob of flat wood, the palette is designed to allow an artist to easily mix paints. A dab here, a dab there, and an entirely new color is formed in the palm of your hand.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Hi David! Its Cameron showing my class how to post.
I read an article on here previously, it was about encouraging collaboration in classrooms. It portrayed a setup of rectangular desks, each one facing a monitor. That design almost completely eliminates the need for a professor, and it seemed very closed off. When looking at a design like this, the idea of collaboration comes naturally. Not only will students end up working together based on where they end up sitting, but also it serves as an amazing space for people to work together on groups projects. Instead of having to awkwardly work side by side, or try and work around the corner of a rectangular table, this allows people to share and discuss more easily. I think tables like this should be introduced in more campuses, but not only that, it would be lovely in study rooms, and places that wouldn't necessarily be used as a classroom, but can be a place where people do work. Not only that, but as an artist, the environment in which you draw can heavily influence the quality of the design. A table like that is very pleasing to look at and I would enjoy working there.
So I find this to be an interesting design. I have found it difficult at times when trying to do group work, and there are times when you can’t always talk to other members because they are in the way. I do think that with all of the intrinsic curves to allow for creative flow. I mean talk can get started just by talking about the table you’re sitting on. For me, I think it can be used in multiple workspaces, partially because you can meet multiple people, or just as well, for school work. You essentially have plenty of workspace to do whatever you might need to do. I wonder what would happen if you put a table like that here at CMU, or in the theatre department for that matter. Wouldn’t that be something, it seems we all take up quite a bit of space so it would make for some interesting positioning of who takes up what space.
I think the paint pallet table design is a very good idea. It will definitely inspire more collaboration because people are forced to sit near each other. When people are close for a long time they eventually begin to speak to each other. The curves and cut outs in the table cause people to sit right across from another person or back to back with them. It is easier to work together on something if the two people are close to each other. A rectangular table only has 4 possible sides to sit on and depending on how wide or long it is, it can be awkward to work around. Since there are many cutouts and curves, there is a lot more space for people to sit around the table and work. Some people can sit in the middle of the table and be surrounded on most sides by other people, which would be convenient in a meeting setting for the leader.
This is an intriguing idea, and an interesting experiment. I love the idea of mixing students like mixing paint, and the attempt to encourage collaboration and cooperation between students is something I would like to see happen here more often. It’s a pleasing design and it would be a very interesting place to work; I wonder what it would be like on a smaller scale, for maybe two or three people. I wish the article had come to a conclusion as to whether or not it actually works to promote collaboration. It is an interesting and stimulating place to work, for sure, but I am not sure as to how well a full class could function together while working at it. The inner circles seem to promote isolation, and in the midst of a large group seated along the outer edges it would feel as if you were standing in the middle of a circle: only able to face a few people at once while turning your back on others. This is why I would like to see it made on a smaller scale, providing the same amount of work space per person but with less of a 360 degree design.
Post a Comment