Creative Re-use of the old and the Worn
Just imagine…old timber, rusted iron, an old bridge, an abandoned house, cracked glass, worn off paint on a wall, faded colors on a fabric…or imagine a old space with aged materials with no one to look after it except for some spiders and a few rodents. “THROW THEM AWAY!!” is what comes to your mind at the first glance.
But, I thought of giving them another glance and my mind just raced through these pieces of living history as any other designer’s mind would. I set out on a journey to see old materials around me not in a journalistic manner but in a designer way. Would these materials be of any use to me? As I kept on thinking about these ‘dying’ pieces, a question struck my mind… “Why do we say these materials are dying?” Human-beings also grow, from babies to toddlers to teenagers to youth to their middle-ages and finally become ‘old’. But we never say that “they are dying”….we say…”they are aging”. This further evoked a few questions…Is this process of aging just a way to decay? Is it a journey to beauty?? Or is it just the effect of time? Or is it something more…
Think about these 3 words – Neglection, Action and Reaction. What is neglection? Neglection is an action in itself. When you neglect something, you actually perform an action on the object that you do not pay attention to it. And as it is rightly said – ‘Every action has a reaction’ – With time passing and the action performed on it, the material submits itself completely to time and this, is the process of aging. Elements like air, water, humidity and microbes in addition to time affect it and the material starts changing its appearance. In general terms, the material looses its worth…but it gives a ’food for thought’ to the designers. With times changing, people have started realising the worth of these ‘aging beauties’. A few ‘oldies’ - the rough, the worn, the dark, the mysterious go well with the ‘youth’- the sparkling, the polished, the bright, the new. The contrast of appearance that time creates on them, gives such a combination a wide appeal.
After thinking about all this, whenever I look at an old material, I can’t avoid giving it another glance. My mind wanders through the entire process again trying to figure out the sign that time has left on them. I ponder whether every person or every designer will perceive the same material as I will? The answer was obviously ‘NO’, the sole reason being that we all are uniquely situated biological beings on this planet. I collected a few things that have lost their original purpose and also a few pictures that can be perceived as something different by every individual.
The most striking thing that caught my attention in the old beauties was the play of colors and the varied pattern of textures that these materials possessed. The picture on the side is that of a rusted, worn piece of metal. The same object when new would have been something that possessed a homogeneous color and texture. The texture…the peeling-off of layers, the unevenness created on a surface that once boasted of its smooth finish makes me wonder how influential the effect of time can be. The diverse colors that the same object now displays after aging, is enormous. Out of curiosity, I tried to separate out colors that this new palette now displayed. Do you even think…this heterogeneous combination is that of a single metal piece? Looking at such a site evokes a few questions…is this a link to the past? Do these materials tell us any story?
To further investigate this question, I learnt about creative reuse of buildings and the reasons for their appeal. As stated by Prof. Derek Linstrum in his lecture series at York institute for advanced architectural studies, there are 5 reasons for appeal of old buildings –
1.Archaeological
2.Aesthetic
3.Economic
4.Functional
5.Psychological
THE REAL LIMITATIONS ARE NOT ARCHAEOLOGICAL, AESTHETIC, ECONOMIC OR FUNCTIONAL, BUT PSYCHOLOGICAL: THE LIMITS CREATED BY PRECONCEPTIONS, AND BY LACK OF IMAGINATION. ONCE THE WILL IS THERE, THE SKILLS AND INGENUITY WILL FOLLOW.
(Ref: Creative Reuse of buildings – Volume 1 by Derek Latham.)
As I have always thought –
It may not be reasonable at times to recomburse the old…
But it is definitely worth taking the effort!!
Just imagine…old timber, rusted iron, an old bridge, an abandoned house, cracked glass, worn off paint on a wall, faded colors on a fabric…or imagine a old space with aged materials with no one to look after it except for some spiders and a few rodents. “THROW THEM AWAY!!” is what comes to your mind at the first glance.
But, I thought of giving them another glance and my mind just raced through these pieces of living history as any other designer’s mind would. I set out on a journey to see old materials around me not in a journalistic manner but in a designer way. Would these materials be of any use to me? As I kept on thinking about these ‘dying’ pieces, a question struck my mind… “Why do we say these materials are dying?” Human-beings also grow, from babies to toddlers to teenagers to youth to their middle-ages and finally become ‘old’. But we never say that “they are dying”….we say…”they are aging”. This further evoked a few questions…Is this process of aging just a way to decay? Is it a journey to beauty?? Or is it just the effect of time? Or is it something more…
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| The Alive thrives on the forgotten |
The most striking thing that caught my attention in the old beauties was the play of colors and the varied pattern of textures that these materials possessed. The picture on the side is that of a rusted, worn piece of metal. The same object when new would have been something that possessed a homogeneous color and texture. The texture…the peeling-off of layers, the unevenness created on a surface that once boasted of its smooth finish makes me wonder how influential the effect of time can be. The diverse colors that the same object now displays after aging, is enormous. Out of curiosity, I tried to separate out colors that this new palette now displayed. Do you even think…this heterogeneous combination is that of a single metal piece? Looking at such a site evokes a few questions…is this a link to the past? Do these materials tell us any story?To further investigate this question, I learnt about creative reuse of buildings and the reasons for their appeal. As stated by Prof. Derek Linstrum in his lecture series at York institute for advanced architectural studies, there are 5 reasons for appeal of old buildings –
1.Archaeological
2.Aesthetic
3.Economic
4.Functional
5.Psychological
THE REAL LIMITATIONS ARE NOT ARCHAEOLOGICAL, AESTHETIC, ECONOMIC OR FUNCTIONAL, BUT PSYCHOLOGICAL: THE LIMITS CREATED BY PRECONCEPTIONS, AND BY LACK OF IMAGINATION. ONCE THE WILL IS THERE, THE SKILLS AND INGENUITY WILL FOLLOW.
(Ref: Creative Reuse of buildings – Volume 1 by Derek Latham.)
As I have always thought –
It may not be reasonable at times to recomburse the old…
But it is definitely worth taking the effort!!
