The Faux Shaux

Frustrated with my thesis paper, I decided to empty my head.  I’ve been researching conceptual projects and tree sculpting, but I couldn’t find the answers I sought.  Maybe the answers are in the questions.

Would you still buy something if you knew it could be grown?

If you knew that you could grow it?  What would you grow?  A chair?  A bicycle?   A house?  And how long would you wait for it to grow?  Would you wait six months for a table?  How about a year?   Would you wait longer if it were to the proportions of your choosing?  What is the relationship to that length of time and that which it would take you to earn the money to simply purchase it?  Is there something you would wait for to grow, but never purchase?

Let’s take this a step further.  What if you could design a product and have a machine grow it for you?   Would you wait for it to grow if it required less attention?  Would you buy such an apparatus?  How much would you spend on such an apparatus?   Would you buy multiple apparatuses to grow more at once?  Would you buy items you were capable of growing in the interest of saving time?   Would your items’ value be based on the length of time they took to grow?  By how closely they resemble the initial plan?  Would they lose value if your hand were visible in its shape?

How would you design your objects?  Would you rather wield greater control or allow for innacuracies in your product?  Do these inaccuracies affect its value?

Once your piece grew to its intended size, would you harvest it?  Would you grow it inside or out?  Would you worry someone would reap your product?  Is there a specific piece you would keep alive?  Would you take the time to maintain it?  Would you let it grow to the ceiling?   Would you let it grow thick with leaves and branches?  Would you meticulously prune and primp?

If you were moving out, would you take the extra care to safely pack it? Would you give it away?  Would you throw it out?  Would you mulch it?  Would you plant it into the ground?  Would you take it to a forest?  How much of your current furniture would you take with you if you had to move?  Would you take more if you could change it’s dimensions?   What if you could add or remove features?

Q: “This is all great, but I don’t know how to use a CAD (computer aided design) program .”

A: Fear not, the world is changing. Communities exist such as Thingiverse (www.thingiverse.com), where designers open source their two and three dimensional designs for others to use and repurpose.

Q: “But I don’t own any 3D CAD software”

A: With open source software Blender and Google Sketchup, 3D design is no longer a “pay to play” field of study.