Barketecheture 2012
Brandon Seals

<a href="http://jeanatacc.com/2011/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/I-phone-best-1019.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-3222" src="http://jeanatacc.com/2011/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/I-phone-best-1019.jpg" alt="" width="281" height="187" /></a>

Image Credit: Eunsil Kim (ASEE Team Member)

After spending the better part of a year designing acquiring the materials and building the structure, the build team and I were finally ready for present our dog house design for the Barchetecture 2012 event, which is a charity design competition held every year and requires participants to build a doghouse for a budget of under three hundred dollars and suggestes you to use mostly recycled and sustainable materials that were found or donated. There were about twenty-five dog houses present and of those, two were built by student groups.

Acc’s entry consisted of a design based on the work of Frank Lloyd Wright and his breathtaking Usonian houses. We received the materials donations from several local companies and only spent money on the fasteners and paint. the structure was built entirely in my garage and by students of the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE). We took home the honor of winning the largest student fundraiser, a total of over seven hundred and eighty dollars. We had to extremely resourceful in order to create this structure seeing as how we hand limited and non standard materials and the renaissance concepts of perspective and scale were just as present and important in this design as they were to Brunelleschi and Pallaio.

There were many inspiring designs and structures present at the event and of those one was constructed entirely of chicken wire and soda cans. Square volumes were made with the cans then encased in chicken wire, this was an interesting idea due to its implications as cheap building materials for impoverished and material starved areas. By bringing a cheap and sheltering structure that could be build by unskilled laborers we might be able to begin bridging the gap between the modern world and the third world.

Also present was an interesting design involving a dog sized murphy bed and what was most interesting about was it was all built for under a hundred dollars and was made of a single plywood sheet. This kind of innovation is crucial to our modern concept of design because our generation is constantly trying to find new ways to use old ideas and if we don't end up recycling the great thoughts of our forefathers we will just waste time and effort attempting to bring ourselves to the same conclusion. Its all well and good to reinvent the wheel but many modern designers are fooling themselves by believing there innovation for the sake of innovation is the key to an intelligent design when in fact only the proper application of these innovations will make the design a flowing and functional creation or a restrictive obstacle to its design intent.

All in all this was a very interesting and eye opening exhibition, not only was it a calling card for the new waves of design wash upon our shores but the effort and emotions present in order to bring so many concepts and ideas to fruition was an example of how different cultures and design backgrounds can come together and benefit a cause for our environment and our humanity.