Designblog

Have you ever wondered if there is something in common between offices in

New York, desert tribes and living spaces of Amsterdam?
In order to find out the answer for this question I went to the Rietvedl’s library.
When I was looking for a book I was keeping in mind two key-words : “focused” and “imagination”.
I had an incredible finding – a book about nomadic design and architecture. It tells that in today’s dynamic and global world more and more people are departing from the settled family houses tradition, where all the things are heavily rooted in a single place and don’t change for generations.
In order to keep in synch with the pace of changes people gravitate towards more agile and lightweight lifestyle that eventually unfolds into it’s own new ecosystem.
This phenomena is known as “nomadic lifestyle” and it has been around for ages ever since the first nomad tribes roamed from place to place.http://www.nomadicarchitecture.com

“Over decades people in western societies have experienced the world and their private lives as static with respect to their spatial and social coordinates. In the view of globalised and virtualised societies this felt security vanishes resulting in behaviour that falls back into strategies long assumed buried in the past: nomadism…One of the later stages of nomadism, called nomadic pastoralism. The concept of nomadic pastoralism celebrates its resurrection in industrialised nations in various forms, i.e. In management practices, social organization, or the composition of information. An example of nomadism in social organisation is the growing movement of RV lifestyle (RV = recreational vehicle), where people are interested in travelling and camping rather than living in one location.”
"Nomadic Information in Social Environments".Frank Nack and Simon Jones HCS,  University of Amsterdam.

Nomadic lifestyle develops it’s way in architecture and design starting from poorest neighbourhoods with homeless people all the way up to the yappy residential areas.
This design was inspired by utility of nomad life and has absorbed it’s plasticity to transform and adapt to the environment. It’s not trying to stand against something, it just follows the trend making any change easy and keeping it in human scale.
As proponents of the nomadic design say “We’ll share with you what we know about the process of going from work-at-home to work-anywhere-you-damn-well-please.”
http://www.knowmads.nl/

They call themselves “Technomads”.Technomads make use of work arrangements in which they enjoy limited flexibility in working location and hours, such as e-commuting, ework, telework, or telecommuting.
The main aspect is that the daily commute to a central place of work is replaced by telecommunication links. Many work from home,while others utilize mobile telecommunications technology to work from coffee shops or myriad other locations.

There are two core aspects of nomadism, namely mobility and individualism.
All nomadic design, architecture and lifestyle are about these very two words.Being inspired by this idea I’ve traveled to many places in Amsterdam from refugee areas to student campings and the downtown.
Here are a few moments:

If you want to read about how nomadic design develops itself in New York, try “New York. Nomadic design.” by Ronald Christ/Dennis Dollens.

Rietveld > lib. cat. no: 772.9 chr 1

The second book that I chose from the library was the ‘Extreme Interiors’. When I was looking at the previous tags, city, nomadic and reality, I created an image in my head, which represents a young man with a suitcase in his hand at a big city airport. The book’s width is greater than its height and it has a nicely finished cover containing bright and striking pink and yellow colours. The cover picture is displaying a man in a suit with his back turned away from us looking like someone that is probably driving a fancy car or piloting a space ship…

The book was exactly what I was looking for.

Book nr:145664

• 
• The first reason I chose the book New York nomadic design, was its title. Recently I visited New York and I thought that the book could complement the information about US design and art that I had gained from the recent trip. The book is the size of an average magazine, and is not too thick either. The cover has a metallic grey cover with a map of New York printed all over the cover. In addition there are four small images that are very different from each other. After a couple of introductory pages, I found that every single page contains three or four pictures with very little text. Those pages as well as on the cover show extremely different things, from a tent made on the street by homeless people to glossy slick furniture. I can appreciate the approach taken by the writer which is giving a real feel for the city.

Rietveld Academie Library No:9788425216213

“subjective library” images and flickr tag-cloud

Read the reflections of A and C group’s journey into the Rietveld Library’s Design and Art section. This journey to investigate, made our fascinations, preconceptions and hidden desires manifest. How does a subjective book choice create a personal mirror and leaves traces of tags, connecting Design to Art, exposing autonomy in both.

Read about the subjective, open and intiutive first book choice from the Design section of our library. Wonder about the tags connected to those accounts. Follow the continuing story as a second book is selected based on those tags created. Witness the third posting in which those sets of tags lead us from Design to Art. A move that forces us to reflect upon the connection between them both.

Follow the continuing accounts of the three succeeding investigating postings by clicking on the yellow link. Experience the total list of tags created during this “Subjective Library” Project.

LIST OF TAGS:

3289 days, A4, cover, funky colors, television, unatractive, film photography : fauna, flora, interesting, lines, strange, fluffy, simple, horrible, brainwork, complicated, proud, “to know” : disorder, game, grid, systematization, “One Minute Sculpture” : library, swindler, breaking news, library loser, extraordinary, talented : space, absence-presence, framework, surrounding, returning : abnormal, rediscover, choice, plain, others : 1000, 754., direction, signs, city, direction, traffic, political, posters : blue Pinocchio, screaming, spine of book, blue, Pinocchio, blue fairy, eyecandy, contemporary, folk, mentality : not getting there, unknown, judging by covers, content, connection, strangers, subject : supermarket, theft, housewife, tiny, midlife crisis, multilingual : logic, question, reason, consciousness, interest, remarks, impossible, mathematical, perspective : attraction, strange, swissfolk, art, death, life, love, Maurizio Cattelan : cover, old book, unique, obsession, miniature : Anita, eyes, portrait, dominant, name, color, film : Wiener Werkstätte, characteristic, hand work, mass fabrication, original, process, realization, detail, photography, the nude : cheap fashion, funny, random, tattoo, tribe, weird, mysterious, tribe : attraction, new texture, action, quick, warning, a priori, new, amusement, choices, eye-catching, eyes, random : escape reality, library, overflow of impulses, fruitless reality, jostling time, absorbing force, déjà-vu : arrange, industrial, library, architecture, museum, self-made, Andreas Gursky, index : city, nomadic, reality, funky, colors, interiors : contrast, fat, texture, typography, culture, nudity : conceptional, distance, no image, steps, thinking space, braille : cat, compulsive, font, chaos, subjective, illustration, objective, random, Tadao Ando : airplane, airport, choice, structure, worldmap, 756, 80’s, human, machines, unique, flying : dot, jewelry, shapes & forms, yellow, children, fun, paint, playful, all colors, blue, green, theory : extraordinary, life, normal, objects, absurd : 80’s, desire, fashion, party, techno, desire, fabrics, orgasmatic : alchemy, identical, methaphysics, mysticism, mythology, Arabic, identical, inaccurate, ladies, naked, orient, sculptures, stereotypes : Canada, Indian symbols, kitsch, raven, Indian art, Mexico, Jeff Koons, porn : attraction, gold, meeting an old lover, recognition, cheap, irresistibility, not psychology, wrong, beauty, compare, contrast, couple, same, similarity, together, two books, ugliness : connection, embroidery, hundred years, death, funerals, general terms, invisible, object, spirit, visible : color, feeling, personal story, feminism, graphic : first sight, mystery, old-fashioned, bloody, mad, rituals, revelatory, Yin : oblivion, automatic lives, bottom shelve, eat, mantra, story-making, colorful, dogs, double-take, eat sleep, vases, vegetables : attracted, nothing, black, disturbing.

still curious read the books involved at the Gerrit Rietveld Library, (catalogue numbers are included).