Let’s Manage Our Life!
Jingyuan Li, Jie Yang, Professor Dan Taeyoung, TA Adam Vosburgh,
METATOOL Columbia GSAPP Fall 2019
Different people have different working style. We can perceive the style through the objects on their working tables. If the table is too messy, it will diminish people’s working efficiency. So let’s manage our life by managing our table first! In our project, computer will no longer be a nonliving tool. He will be given emotions and act as your strict parents or lovely friends.
Our idea is to create a tool in grasshopper that allows objects to automatically form a visual area on the table and furthermore, to help us manage the table or even our life!
To begin with, we categorize objects into 4 kinds — work-related, entertainment, life-related and in-between objects. All kinds are assigned to distinguishing color, which is blue, red, green and yellow. Each object is assigned to a code.
When we do not concentrate on our work or do not treat our health seriously, computer, as a human being, will show an emotional warning to you based on the character they act. The strict parent character will be shown under hard mode. The lovely friend character will be shown under soft mode.
Hard and soft mode are determined by 4 exterior elements like time, weather, surrounding sound and your current feelings. If any one of the condition happens (time before 22:00, weather is sunny, surrounding is too noisy, you are sad), the mode will automatically become hard mode. Beside this, it will be soft mode. But you have the prior right to choose the mode you want. Although as designers, we highly don’t recommend it. So we also set a highest priority which happens when the conditions mentioned above are all meets. In this case, you have to accept hard mode, that means you need to deal with a strict parent!
For the working objects, the codes imported in the computer will be defined as outside points and inside points. The outside points will link together shaping as a polygon which can generate a rectangle box with grid of points. At the same time, the inside points will be hinted about the shortest path to points in the grid system. This grid will be visualized on the table helping people organize objects in order.
For the entertainment objects which are not supposed to be attached during working time, computer will calculate the distance between the points with edge points of the working area. If the minimum distance is larger than 70 cm, then the computer will be in the comfortable viewport. However, if it is smaller than 70 cm, then the computer will switch to angry viewport which will also project on the table as a warning sign.
For the life-related objects, the computer will detect the movement of points within few hours. If no movement is detected, then the table will appear some words to remind people to have a rest and take some nutrients.
Tool In Action
Let’s see how this tool can help you organize your table!
Wanna see your computer act as a strict parent? Check the Gif below to see a situation where you try to play with your phone during working time.
In Conclusion
In conclusion, we consider the people, computer and table as a whole system. People are not just using computer but are working with him. Not only will we direct the computer but also we will receive the feedback and responds from him. Moreover, as table objects are linked with computer, a lot of works can be visualized and spatialized. The change of the reality is also able to trigger activities in computer. Meanwhile, people’s connection with working table become closer which means our lifestyle and working style is more intuitive. Using the program, we have the capability of managing our life better.
For the further development, we would like to keep working on it and completing the whole idea. This kind of change of relationship might bring us more surprises.
