Building Blocks

In a number of my initial designs, I kept coming back to this idea of a cube. I've now since fixated on that same cube and have been thinking about how you can break down or build a cube by amalgamating more cubes, like a Rubik's cube. Although I have a pretty solid conceptual idea (which I'll share once it's a little more fleshed out), I've felt pretty stuck in the last week or so, and I'm not sure how to develop my idea further. So, I've been looking at my favorite design websites, as well as some random bookmarks trying to find inspiration, when I stumbled upon this, an old bookmark from years ago.

It's formatted like a basic Internet article, with the clickbait title and itemized list. But the idea of repurposing old shipping containers for home design reminded me of the project we are embarking on. Although we're not attempting something on the scale of building a new home, we are creating something new. Hopefully, anyway. These people have taken a shipping container (or multiple), something with a certain identity and totally changing that perspective. Here are just a couple of my favorite redesigns.

So while the idea of a shipping container is still in tact, they've totally transformed its use.

I decided to look up shipping containers on my favorite design site, and found this project, a building designed in Korea. This quote from the opening stuck with me: 

"Constructed by 28 ISO cargo containers which were brilliantly and thoughtfully stacked as if a young child was playing and placing building blocks one on top of another trying to construct a building." 

Now we've added this new context in terms of the cube, and how it's been used. And yeah, shipping containers aren't cubes, but they're pretty close. You could argue that they're comprised of cubes. 

Anyway, all of this has me rethinking the cube. Well. Not rethinking it, because I still feel pretty attached to that idea, but just thinking about ways that the cube can move and grow and breathe and exist. Which is in turn influencing the way I'm imaging its sound design (particularly if I take influence from these shipping containers).

My thoughts still have a lot of percolating to do, but things are definitely looking up compared to where they were earlier this week!