Rain, Feedback Loops, and Missed Opportunities

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McCaren Park Flood

Urban designers seem to consider rain to be an intruder, and the city tries to hide the downpour as quickly as possible. The weather’s swept under the carpet with inconsistent success.

submerged car

The same thinking informs cars that lose value the second you drive them off the lot, fashion that only lasts one season, and iPods that look terrible when they get scratched through daily use. Our culture so values factory-freshness that the moment of box-opening is the only stage of a product’s life that’s usually designed. The rest is left to fate. We need to make products that exist in a user’s world, over a substantial period of time, instead of in stasis on a hoped-for shelf in MoMA’s design wing.

Dutch Ovens

Every material feels the effects of time and use. My favorite designs articulate their wear artfully rather than attempt (never successfully) to hide it, or worse, to ignore its inevitability. Yixing teapots are left unglazed to promote the development of a patina over the course of many infusions. The most beautiful floorboards have a soft, almost frosted texture from centuries of bare feet, and you “season” rather than wear out cast iron cookware. Designers need to design beyond a single moment in time; freshness should be important for veggies and ideas, not a mass-produced product.

subway wall

Like products, cities exist all the time. Designing for crisp, sunny days in early autumn and trying to “deal” with weather that deviates from this ideal isn’t just difficult, it’s a missed aesthetic opportunity. Why not use runoff to grow walls of fluffy moss instead of uneven bacterial stains in subway stations? Just replace the tiles with porous concrete and add some dried moss to get things started. Or sidewalks that use two kinds of cement that look the same when dry, but change when wet to reveal a pattern only on rainy days. Rain is already a trigger in a system of mostly hidden feedback loops - any other ideas for designing these loops into the city’s surface?

Moss

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About this entry

You’re currently reading “Rain, Feedback Loops, and Missed Opportunities,” an entry on Joey Roth

Published:
04.18.07 / 2pm
Category:
Products, Theory, Design, Materials, City, Perception