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Q – What effect does translucence, light and color have on people's moods and attitude?
Mary – Oh, it’s huge. There are spaces that make you feel good and expansive. And then there are spaces that make you want to run. It’s not always logical. Sometimes a cluttered space can be a rich environment. So it’s not necessarily a minimalist environment. But it’s an environment that feeds the soul. Light and color have a huge effect on that. One of the theories I’ve been evolving is that you build a space in such a way that people in that space feel centered. There are so many choices in the world and there are so many people. It’s easy to feel lost; there is a crisis of possibilities. (Just try to go pick out a cell phone. I don’t want even to think about it!) The array of choices we have in every area is one great benefit of our prosperous society but it’s also very confusing. We don’t really want or need all of those choices. We would like someone to curate the choices for us. To make powerful and appropriate choices, we want some place to be where you understand your position in relationship to everything else. So when you can create a space that actually allows the human being to become the focus, wherever they’re standing, that frees the mind and soul to make relevant choices. Good design creates a peaceful centered space. And translucence, light and color are wonderful tools to bring that focus to people. They can be used as centering devices.
Q – What are the primary attributes you’re looking for in a plastic?
Mary – It depends on the function. There is no single, independent parameter. There’s function. There’s form – how it looks – and then what it costs. Of course, designers lean heavily toward looks. But if they only did looks, the products would fail. So they have to be interested in how it functions. And if they want to get the job, and keep the job, like Ron Pompei’s three-story ‘history of the universe’ wall, they have to say, "Well, if we can’t do it within the budget, we’ll have to come up with another idea." So they are all included. But generally a designer will look at form first. You can always wiggle around the other parameters once you’ve got the vision. | |
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Bifid project, the New Museum of Contemporay Art |
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Q – Designers often tell us they can't tell one plastic from another so they just say, 'Some kind of plastic.' Do you encounter the same kind of puzzled reaction to materials?
Mary – Plastics are a total mystery to most designers and architects. The differences between polymers, brand and manufacturing method are not generally known. I try to get very basic information across in my seminars, as this is not complex, just not generally understood. Polyester is not the same thing as acrylic. These are different things. A water bottle is not made of the same stuff, in sheet form, that I'm going to get for my wall. I have choices. Sometimes clients get angry. They want to know why the qualities they need are not available, when they just haven’t been invented yet, or are not thought to have a big application so are not commercially produced. I had a client who wanted a clear plastic. He thought I had a secret sauce that I could put on clear stuff that would keep fingerprints off of it. I said, "You can get abrasion resistance." And I explained the difference. He didn't know that he was using acrylic. It was only plastic to him. He actually got angry: "Why don't you know? Why isn't this product available?" There are performance charts available for most products and even websites that will allow you to compare products. But sometimes the format is mystifying. They don't really have time to sort out why one polymer is better than another. What they have is a picture in their head of an end result, so they’re creators, sculptors. I can relate to that. I've never built anything that had already been built. Whenever I go to do something, I'm pushing the boundaries. Somehow they need to get the facts about the materials and how it functions into their heads so they can make great specifications. As creators, they need correct data to create their own wisdom and thus their own brilliant designs.
Q – Why did you select TiGlaze copolyester for Bifid, the New Museum of Contemporary Art project ?
Mary – We needed something that was extremely flexible and durable so that it wouldn’t tear or break as we put it together and hung it. These pieces are all put together with interlocking slots and suspended from thin wires that are attached through small holes very near the edges of each sheet. It needs to be very durable. And it needs to be very flexible because we’ve taken long strips and then wound them up, compressed and stretched them into the pattern. It was very suitable to this type of stress, plus it’s a reasonably economical material to use. | |
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Q – What was the inspiration for the Bifid project ?
Mary – I met Alisa Andrasek (the architect for Bifid) while doing a proposal for another project that never happened. She has some very specific ideas about translating mathematically generated grids into three dimensions by morphing them along biological parameters. When she started doing these intersections as furniture, art and even possible building skins, she called me up with the concept. Her programmers wrote the program and sent it along to me and my CNC machine made all the cuts. It’s an interesting interface of mathematicians, computer programmers, computers and tools, all put into the service of art. Then my shop applies the matte finish which takes away reflection as an issue and makes each strip a little more opaque.
Q – What's the biggest difference between Bifid and your installations based on LightBlocks?
Mary – Alisa is the holder of this dream. So it’s her vision. As a process partner, I influence the vision by saying, "This material? Or this material?" Weight was a big issue because there is no structure in the building to hang it from. So I said, "If we don't want it to weigh much, we have to use very thin material. This means it has to be very strong so we have to use copolyester or polycarbonate." We ran some trials on polycarbonate and I said, "Far too rigid. It won’t do this swirling thing." So we switched to copolyester. Alisa has her own vision and genius that has created this work of art and along the way the collaboration team has a huge influence on the outcome.
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The Bifid project features Eastman's TiGlaze copolyester
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Display at Iramo Shoe Store, New York City
MB Wellington Studio |
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Q – What are the advantages of copolyester?
Mary–The flexibility and strength of it after it has been stressed is something of value. We just came out with a new design for a LightBlocks library display so that architects can keep samples together in a compact, yet visible format. I created a very beautiful structure of acrylic to hold all of the master samples, then, pushed the parameters of acrylic too far. It was stressed because I notched and then heat formed it. Then I shipped it, with heavy things in it. And it didn't hold up very well. So I said, "Why don't we try copolyester?" We notch and line bend it so we're able to make an economical display that holds up very well to all kinds of use. At the same time we get a demonstration of another kind of material.
Q – How do you overcome the various perceptions about plastics?
Mary–We’ve had a love-hate relationship with plastic. The material is relatively new, yet permeates all societies. I believe polystyrene is single-handedly responsible for one negative concept about plastic. It has very little internal strength or resilience, it breaks easily, yet it looks just like acrylic, which has much more strength. For example, your CD crystal cases are made from styrene and they break easily, especially at the stress points, like the hinge and catch. Acrylic is used as the crowd barrier for ice hockey rinks, demonstrating great strength. The hippie dictionary defines plastic as the epitome as what is wrong with society. Andy Warhol said, "I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They're beautiful. Everybody's plastic, but I love plastic. I love plastic. I want to be plastic." I end my seminars by saying, “It’s not fake anything; it’s real plastic." There are people who manufacture architectural material out of plastic who refuse to use the word. They call it ‘resin’. It sounds like tree sap. Perhaps they believe it will appear to be more natural by using this term. This is accurate as all plastic before it reaches its final form may be referred to as resin.
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Q – In your seminars, you talk about the art of plastics in architecture and design. What's the key to maximizing the artistic value of plastic?
Mary – We are 'inspiration driven’. We say get your vision clear first, then, ask of the plastics to meet that vision. And don’t give up! People give up -- "We would’ve used this but it scratches." You don’t have to give up there. Hold the vision. Ask for what you need. Call us if you have to. We constantly push the boundaries, coming up with new methods and materials. My motto as a sculptor was: ‘hold the vision.’ (That and bring the project in on time and within the budget.)
Q – One of the core values of your company is environmental responsibility. How do you protect and perpetuate that ?
Mary – We walk the talk. We recycle 100 percent of everything we have left over and re-utilize these pieces. And we spend our time and decision making energy to recycle at the highest possible levels. We catalog all of our cutoffs. Anything over a certain dimension or thickness, we save. It would be cheaper to throw it away and buy new stuff. But it makes more sense to me to maximize the resources we have. Every tiny scrap that’s not recyclable is sold to a company who takes it away, grinds it up and turns it into other useful things. We’ve also made a commitment to our clients to recycle their project at the end of its useful life. Say, you had a Cyber Café and you decided you want walnut tables instead of LightBlocks tables. Send them back to us and we’ll figure out what’s the best way to use them. (We'll probably sell them on eBay. They still look great.) So that’s the highest use of recycling – don’t even change the form, don’t spend any energy on it. If we have to, we’ll turn it into something else.
Q – What’s the most important tip about materials you’d give other designers?
Mary – Pick the right polymer. There’s a variety. Choose the right one. When people want to do something that I don’t do, I send them to somebody who does it. People who sell only one polymer or process tend to try to make that fit every design possibility. That’s where a lot of the mistakes are made and a lot of the disinformation happens. There are so many possibilities. That’s why I’m really glad that my product is not so much a product as a process. I can work with all of the possibilities to meet the creative vision of the designer.
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