The danger in relying on [sophisticated virtual design tools] too much is that we can end up isolated from the physical world. In our quest to quickly make three-dimensional objects, we can miss out on the experience of making something that helps give us our first understandings of form and material, of the way a material behaves—’I press too hard here, and it breaks here’ and so on…It’s very hard to learn about materials academically, by reading about them or watching videos about them; the only way you truly understand a material is by making things with it.
Joseph Cooney
on 07 Jul 10My initial reaction to this was “Bullshit” – there is a whole branch of engineering dedicated to understanding the behavior of materials – called materials science. Engineers don’t build little bridges made of steel to see how bigger bridges are going to behave, because the properties of materials don’t change linearly with the size of the thing being built. In some cases you can’t work with the ‘real materials’ – I know some engineers who work for weapons manufacturers. They have pretty sophisticated virtual mathematical models for how the human body behaves when large metal projectiles fly through it and explode inside it. Mathematical tools like finite element analysis can tell you ‘if you press to hard here it breaks here’. The reason I’m not writing this notion (that you’ve got to use the ‘real thing’) off completely is that engineers do build small models, and key components of the final design using the real materials from time to time.
Andrew Bennett
on 08 Jul 10I was a fan of Jonathan Ive, but watching the video of him talking about iPhone4 at the Apple announcement, I was stuck by how full of himself he seems.
And then all the problems with iPhone4’s antenna makes me think that for Mr Ive, Form wins over Function, with little attempt to balance the two, and that can’t be a good thing.
Francis
on 08 Jul 10F1 is the best example of virtual design and building it to test if it works or not. :)
Sam
on 08 Jul 10nice thoughts, but maybe mr ive should pratice what he is preaching. two usb ports so near to each other that you can only use one of them without any additional stuff on a 2000$ MacBook Pro is a shame.
Alexandr
on 08 Jul 10... depends on what you’re designing. :)
Sure that’s a good thing to keep in mind (and in hands).
Romain
on 08 Jul 10@Joseph Cooney
Engineers building bridges are only interested in knowing whether it will collapse under different forces.
Jonathan Ive (a designer) is interested in knowing how the stuff he creates actually look and feel when you hold them in your hand. Obviously he knows what physical properties a material has, but he only discovers how it feels depending on how you machine it by actually doing things with it.
Joseph Cooney
on 08 Jul 10Romain – I’m aware of who Jonathan Ive is, and what he does. You say that he only cares about how things will look and feel, but that’s not what the quote says, it pretty clearly says he is interested in if things will break.
’I press too hard here, and it breaks here’
I think to say that engineers only care about whether something will break or not mis-characterizes engineers. I know some of them are pretty fetish-ist about bridge aesthetics, and there are some pretty nice looking bridges around the world. Did these just happen by accident?
Michael S
on 08 Jul 10Joseph, are you saying designers and engineers shouldn’t have hands-on experience with the materials they work with? Because that’s basically what the quote is about. I don’t think Ive is discouraging proper testing. His comment about seeing how it breaks is more about getting a feel for the material in general, rather than using your fingers to test a specific application of it.
Joseph Cooney
on 09 Jul 10Michael S – I’m not saying in all cases designers and engineers shouldn’t have hands-on experience with materials, but in some cases it isn’t possible/economical/necessary. For example going back to my bridge example – there’s no point building a model bridge out of steel because it won’t behave the same way due to the non-linear scaling problem. It isn’t economically viable to build a full-sized ‘prototype’ bridge out of steel and concrete to verify that the bridge will stand up. Using mathematical models they can calculate if the bridge is capable of withstanding the loads it is intended to carry, so in this instance I don’t think it is necessary for the person designing the bridge to get down and dirty with steel and reinforced concrete. I guess the way people experience bridges is with their eyes and by driving over them – so the ‘fit and finish’ required is different to consumer electronics devices which Mr Ive designs. I’m prepared to believe he was quoted out of context, but he doesn’t make any caveats to say that this applies just to small consumer electronics devices. He flat out says “It’s very hard to learn about materials academically” which I don’t think applies in all cases. If you interpret the statement “’I press too hard here, and it breaks here’ and so on…It’s very hard to learn about materials academically” to be ‘about getting the general feel’ then that’s fine. My interpretation is the exact opposite – to me it sounds like he’s talking about testing very specific scenarios by building physical prototypes.
Sillycasper
on 11 Jul 10Next time don’t forget the aerial Jonathan.
This discussion is closed.