Non Linear Sequence

The Consumer Needs Truth.

Matrix of Factors Involved

This is a diagram that helps me relate the different branches of my project. With this I can begin to narrow down my design criteria and see how these conditions are affected with different design possibilities.

Buenos Aires: The Ghost Train of the Cartoneros

“The poor, as everyone knows, are invisible when you speed past their homes on the highway,” journalists for the Buenos Aires daily Clarín wrote on Sept. 26.

Amid all the economic statistics, amid all the talk of debt defaults and monetary policy, the people most affected by the Argentine financial crisis—poor and working-class Argentines—are almost as invisible in much of the world's reporting on the crisis. “Argentina's 35 million citizens will not be the only ones to pay a heavy price for that country's latest financial crisis,” a prestigious journal intones before going into a detailed analysis of economic policy. “Angry crowds protested outside bank buildings, a sign of growing social unrest,” an international news agency dutifully reports.

When the Argentine economy collapsed in late December 2001, the residents of José León Suárez, a neighborhood on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, were among the first to lose their jobs. In the following months many, faced with the prospect of starvation, joined piquetero organizations—informal networks dedicated to mutual aid and often destructive political protest. In José León Suárez, residents successfully lobbied the government to begin nightly train service from their community to the more salubrious neighborhoods of downtown Buenos Aires, where cartoneros—cardboard collectors—sort through the day's trash in search of recyclable material that can be exchanged for money. Today, according to the International Red Cross, some 2,000 cartoneros use the train. Volunteers staff a nursery school so that children will have a safe place to be while their parents are at work every night.

In the evening, the cartoneros pile on to a government-supplied train, a stripped-down wreck without seats, heat for the winter, or air-conditioning for the summer. El Tren Blanco, or the “white train,” as most cartoneros call it, leaves downtown Buenos Aires before dawn. Most Argentines never see the cartoneros. Aware of their invisibility, the cartoneros have taken to calling the train El Tren del Fantasma, or the “Ghost Train.”

In a special report for World Press Review online, Italian photojournalist Andrea Di Martino chronicled the Ghost Train's voyage one night in August 2002.
—Elijah Zarwan, Web editor

Audio Sequence

Close your eyes and enjoy.

Material Cycle

Thoughtless Acts

Questionnaire

If you have a minute please fill this out.

Print it and give it to me whenever you can, or just drop it in my mailbox on the 3rd floor.

Thanks.

Context / Framework

Matrix Diagram

This matrix diagram will be constantly evolving according to the way my project might shift. These categories are useful to narrow down the participants involved. They also help me map the influences and opportunities that might occur as my design solution shifts.

Bling Bling

Check out this necklace by Thorn NYC.

Proof that a scrap can be beautiful when its context is changed. A Soda Lid reborn into a Subtle Accessory.

Here's the link to their page:

Thorn

Scrap Wood Wallpaper

Check out this scrap wood wallpaper by Studio Ditte.

Here's the link to their webpage:

Studio Ditte

Recycled Bike Furniture by Frida Ottemo Kallstrom

"There is something special about bicycles. Any bike enthusiast will tell you that their bicycle is not merely a means of efficient transportation, but practically an extension of their body. But what happens when that once cherished two-wheeled friend has outrun its course?

Swedish designer Frida Ottemo Kallstrom resolves this dilemma with unique designs that will keep the cherished memories of your favorite bicycle intact even after its well-worn parts have deteriorated. She debuted her collection of recycled bicycle furniture at the Salone Satellite show in Milan this past April."

inhabitat 11.02.06

BIG NYC

On Tuesday I visited "Build it Green NYC" which is New York City’s only non-profit retail outlet for salvaged and surplus building materials.


Here is the link to their Press Kit in case you're interested

BIG!

Get Trashed

This article is old but the featured store is in town so check it out if you're around the area.

Experiments & Observations

so many parts... where to begin...

man-made landscape

Salvage NY

These are images from an article that came out in Time Out a couple of days ago. They are a group of designers in NY who go around town and pick up trash. They give each piece a new life though design and then auction them online. They are working in collaboration with Housing Works which is a Non for Profit organization that works as a vintage/ antique shop which raises funds and awareness for the cause of HIV AIDS.


Click on the link in the articles column if you want to visit the auction.

Atypyk

Check out the packaging on this kitchen sponge. Pretty cool!