John James Marshall thesis.pdf - OpenAIR @ RGU - Robert Gordon ...

used for objects of differing scales, functions and purposes? For example, how
can we discuss Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain (Figure 24)
and Karim Rashid’s ‘Garbo’ rubbish bin (Figure 25) as being of the same order
of object? Some may question why we would want to do this in the first place
but it is difficult to argue against the fact that neither would have existed had it
not been for the use of computer-based design and fabrication tools.
Figure 24: ‘Guggenheim Museum Bilbao’, 1997. Frank Gehry
The process of analysis began with the most practical course available: analysis
of the objects already gathered from the researcher’s previous involvement in
the field. During the research project, provisional criteria and preliminary
models emerged from patterns that were observed. Eventually the data was
compacted as it became apparent the computer-based aspects of the conception,
production and consumption of the objects formed the core criteria of the study.
The study makes use of a set of one hundred and forty-eight objects produced by
a wide array of practitioners within the past ten years. This was narrowed from
a set of two hundred objects. Fifty-two objects were removed because they were
produced by a practitioner already represented in the set (and the objects were
of a similar type). Several virtual reality objects were also removed as the study
focused in on the production aspects of computer-based design and fabrication
technologies in the creation of physical objects.
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