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During my first week at UAL, I had the opportunity to put myself to the test. We discussed our tasks and deadlines in detail, as well as our passions and ambitions and how to translate them into a visible, accessible and, above all, understandable language. This is part of a process that will allow us to develop an identity that belongs to us and leaves a distinctive mark on what we do.

Our first goal for the week was to discover and research... What were we looking for?

Simple: ourselves and what interests us. At the same time, as part of this research, we still have to try to create 100 objects in 15 days, cataloguing them and paying attention to errors and how they came about.

For the rest, this is a space for reflection, and I think I should also talk about how I feel. We are all a little lost, but this strengthens us and brings us together. I didn't think I would meet so many good people with so many different talents in one week, but that's how it was, and I certainly feel less alone than before on this journey.

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After the research session in London, I realized which direction to take for unit two, but the search for sources of information and inspiration is very broad and will really force me to revise my timeline. I had a very specific plan in mind, but my reflections over the last few days have taught me that nothing in life or in one's career should be taken for granted, and that the best trait a designer can have is the ability to adapt to situations and change plans without necessarily disrupting their workflow.

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During the second week, I realised how fundamental research is in every designer's creative process. I faced some difficulties this week, experiencing creative and idea blocks, but despite this, I stepped out of my comfort zone, participated in workshops, exhibitions, and interesting conversations, and all this allowed me to overcome that state of mental and emotional blockage and move forward. In the wood workshop, I was able to experiment with various techniques, machines, and materials, and above all, I was able to better understand the direction my research wants to take. The worlds of architecture and design seem like two parallel trains that sometimes intersect but never collide. It is subtle to grasp the vein (sometimes even ironic) that divides these two worlds, which is also the same vein that connects them. My task will be to understand these two worlds, the moments when they are close and similar, and what they communicate to people.

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The 100 objects project is progressing at an impressive pace. As the days go by, both my classmates and I find ourselves in difficulty at times, while at other times we get on well and easily overcome the difficulties. This scale table is one of the latest objects I have produced. Honestly, in recent days, I have just been trying to understand how my vision can change or adapt to every need, such as waste materials found in the studio and various workshops around campus.

What I am trying to work with is not only this, but I am also trying to improve my skills in handling materials by hand and combining them using various joining techniques.

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The Transspecies Rosette, by Andrés Jaque

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This week, we went to the Design Museum, where we were able to admire the exhibition ‘More Than Human’, an exhibition involving various artists and designers who sought to communicate an important message, namely how essential it is for humans to reconnect with nature.

As primitive beings, we were extremely connected to the world around us. The evolution of our species was a fundamental and necessary step to survive changing times, but we did not necessarily have to detach ourselves from our roots or lose touch with our senses and the natural world.

This exhibition teaches us how much of the design around us is unconsciously linked to aspects of nature that characterize it as wild, minimalist, rigid, strong, unknown, and extravagant. The goal that these artists and designers set for themselves is not only to communicate ideas and situations, but also to take the observer on a journey to acquire new awareness of themselves and the world around them.

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The third week was full of excitement and presentations. We reached the milestone of 100 objects, a short and intense process in which all of us in the Designer Maker course pushed our minds beyond their limits and created and designed 100 objects (2D and 3D).

Among my classmates, the process that struck me and that I feel I would like to analyze from a broader perspective is that of Yasmin. This designer decided right from the start to emphasize the importance of her roots, her relationship with her family and her culture, as well as her native land.

Taking inspiration from her culture, she developed a series of patterns that are both functional and elegant, allowing her to experiment and practice with different materials, while also being beautiful.

I firmly believe that her journey here is only just beginning and that, with a little more time, she could have created something definitive and amazing, but for now, she has given us a taste of her design process, and I am curious to see what the future holds for her.

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During the feedback session about the 100 objects, I realized how to structure my work and how much effort and time to put into each part of my job; however, I haven't structured it well yet.

My research map is showing my field of interest and gathering the things I like, and I get inspired by. The real issue is that I don't know where to start writing, and I have no clue how to structure my CRP.

In the meantime, I'll just get more and more creative getting ideas done and building up inspirations for my research process.

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In week four, we were able to finish our sessions in the wood workshop area on the ground floor. I learned a lot about wood joints, the different types of joints, their usefulness, and the strength that each can exert on the material used.

For the structure of my object, I used different types of joints for the sides and base, smoothing the corners at the end with the sanding machine. This project is the body of an object composed of several parts made of different materials, so while I was building it, I also had to take into account the interaction it would have with the other materials I would add later.

In the end, the result is quite satisfactory, and I hope it will interface well with the rest of the box that will be added later. This is the final result for now, and it seems to work, so mission accomplished :).

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This week, I also devoted myself to one of my passions, music. I am both a DJ and a designer. Still, unfortunately, my house does not have any speakers, so I decided to build them myself using a combination of manual labor and specific machinery, such as CNC.

The speaker consists of a woofer and a tweeter, which cover the mid and high ranges of sound, respectively, and an internal transistor connected to the speaker.

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I went to PAD this week with my sisters, my aunt, and my mum, who came to visit me. Since they were here, we were curious about the design week, and therefore, we went there to check it out. Useless to say that the stands were incredible and really fascinating. The design pieces included in PAD were really different from each other, ranging from lamps to sofas to tables, and even to jewelry. It was a really amazing experience we had as a family.

This week, we also had the H. collection. When we were asked to choose an object to research and get inspired by, we understood the importance of collecting objects, how to look at them, and how to actually get both object-oriented questions and object-driven questions, useful tools in our research to get to know the object and its characteristics better.

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At the end of this week, there was a presentation about our CRP projects. I saw many interesting ideas, and seeing my classmates so confident made me feel very competitive, but in a good and productive way. I thought I had clear ideas too, but when I presented my project and my research interests, I realised, also through the feedback from my professors, that I had not been able to take my research and filter it in the clearest and most orderly way possible. The feedback I received highlighted flaws in my research, which seems to be too generic, whereas at this point it should be a sort of specific summary of what I want to write about.

Moreover, during the feedback, another major problem caught my attention, namely that of plagiarism. The fine line between plagiarising someone's work and being inspired by it is a blurred boundary that is easy to ignore and can therefore lead you to make mistakes and fall into a trap. I will have to analyse this as well.

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During the week, we went to the archive to interact with the object we had chosen so that we could analyse it in detail, ask questions about the object itself or its use and functions, take photos and use it as a source of inspiration.

This led to an important brainstorming session that took me to the next stage of my object to object project.

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My lamp is progressing and evolving every day. After the last feedback session, I found inspiration and also the ability to see the project from another perspective.

I was finally able to establish the connection between this object and what I want to explore in the world of architecture. The naturalness of wood will help me, by manipulating it in the best possible way, to create an object that will immediately arouse interest and curiosity in those who observe it.

The idea is to combine my impressions and observations of the Muffler with my knowledge of the Tower of Pisa, which also gives this project a sense of belonging to my country and its history. The main feature noted in the feedback is to make the lamp more interesting by creating unique patterns on the external structure to achieve a result similar to that of the Tower of Pisa: elegant, refined, and very striking.

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This week, I have been working hard to understand how best to convey the concepts underlying my project. This has led me to ask myself: what do I want to express? Who do I want to address? Is it immediately relevant? What does it symbolise about my creative process? Which part do I identify with most, and what is the most useful order in which to communicate my actions?

All this has led me to understand where I am in the organisation of my work, and it has been very useful, given that, while testing different materials, I found myself a little lost in the process, not knowing whether I was really moving forward or staying in the same place where I had always been.

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When Tony came to share his books and toys with us this week, some of which were very interesting, I realised that part of my project's communication would have to be graphic, and I'm not just referring to sketches and infographics on how to use the object or its components, but also a professional yet friendly way of communicating everything behind it.

This little book in particular struck me immediately, simple, concise and flamboyant. Obviously, depending on the content, I didn't quite understand what the author was referring to, but the graphics were so striking that I decided to give it a try myself.

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After the last feedback, I started testing different materials for my lamp, asking myself: how can I refract light? How can I deflect it? Would it be right to deflect it? What do I want to do with this object? Do I want to furnish or create an atmosphere for the user? If I wanted to create an atmosphere for the user, what kind of atmosphere would I aim to create? A thousand questions flood my mind as I test and create prototypes that may or may not provide answers to them.

During the brainstorming process, I decided to limit myself to the three materials we talked about last week, which are metal, acrylic, and wood. Yesterday, when I received feedback on all the testing I had done and the conclusions I had reached, I had to ask myself new questions, such as how to go further. What are the most interesting aspects of my project that I identify with as a designer? How can they help my work evolve to the next stage?

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Back home, I started experimenting with the positioning of the light inside the lamp, noting how it behaved with different materials and multiple layers with which I blocked the propagation of light.

Thanks to this, I found answers to my questions, such as how many layers I could use, how many different materials, and above all, the dimensions of my lamp, which I thought would be too large but are actually perfect.

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This week, I had the opportunity to learn different joining techniques. I worked on how to melt plastic to join multiple wooden structures.

We also had the opportunity to visit the V&A and take a tour of the museum, focusing only on the areas we were most interested in. In my case, Edo-period Japan was very interesting. The craftsmanship of that time is what I am researching: the finishes, the long-lasting forms, even the solid, harmonious ones. Spending time drawing the details of these objects helped me better understand how to ask certain questions, both to the technicians in the various workshops and to myself, in researching and creating the 3D models that helped me achieve results.

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At the V&A, we followed guidelines that inspired me to obtain more and more in-depth information about the objects I observed: how were they created? Why were they created in this way? How much testing did they undergo? How long did it take to mass-produce them at the time?

Today, the technologies we have at our disposal allow us to carry out incredible projects in a short time, but what I am looking for is quality and the immediate, or almost immediate, communication of the message that the object or objects that inspired me communicated to me personally.

Focusing on the details of certain objects, I concentrated on the patterns that different cultures chose for specific objects, whether they were functional or not, and whether they were more related to the practice of these objects or their functionality.

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We are in the final stages of the object-to-object project, which for me is directly linked to two objects: one is the monumental Tower of Pisa and the second is a silencer for a motorbike exhaust. The external pattern created in plywood allows the wood to bend more and be more flexible, to investigate the presence of more or fewer patterns to bend more or fewer surfaces of wood, or other materials such as acrylic metal.

The connection to the Tower of Pisa had to be something that clearly and evocatively recalled its slope. The Tower of Pisa is recognised and remembered almost everywhere in the world for its slope, the history of which dates back to 1700 and has evolved over time. Due to natural causes, the tower gives the impression that it is falling. I first worked on the structure of the object itself and then on that of a stabilising base.

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To stabilise it, I used a laser cutting machine to carve pieces of wood at a specific angle and fixed them inside one of the extra rings I had for my lamp. From there, I realised how I could improve the functionality and appearance of the lamp by cutting one of the ring's surfaces at a specific angle and using the holes made with the CNC machine on the ring as guide holes. I used a drill to bore holes in the base of the lamp to a depth that allowed me to insert pins through the ring and base to secure them without using any glue.

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After the Christmas break, during which I focused more on writing and organising my research for my CRP, I returned to university and put the finishing touches to my presentation, which allowed me to complete my assignments and proceed with the final presentation. The presentation was short and concise. I tried to use my eight minutes to fully express the key points of what I had learned and my work, but I don't know if I should have allowed myself more time to decide how to communicate my work.

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Despite the constructive comments and equally constructive criticism, I still think and am convinced that my object-to-object project is valid and professional. Every stylistic choice in the project has a stabilising value, and I think I have also succeeded perfectly in my intention to reflect the architecture in the design and to show more or less brightness from my lamp.

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We will receive feedback in the coming weeks, but for now, I am mainly focusing on reading the new briefs and asking myself which of them might be most in line with my project proposal. I have also been told that I should think more

and try to go deeper in my research, but above all in the questions I ask myself.

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I have always been fascinated by churches. Over the centuries, this type of architecture has undergone countless changes resulting from culture, traditions, and places of origin (both in terms of materials and structure). Churches are places of worship, created to bring people as close as possible to God in all cultures. The questions architects ask themselves about how and why to go in a certain direction are interesting. The culture of each people is fundamental in making these decisions, and here in England, especially in London, I have seen many churches close to each other, even in the same neighbourhood. For this reason, I have decided to consider them as architectural sites because they are full of interesting questions to be answered.

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After reviewing my CRP, Simo suggested an interesting and useful exercise linked to the development of what we want to do in our Unit 2. The exercise consisted of rereading our documents and drawing up a list of words characteristic of our writing and communication style that represented our critical thinking, were interesting, and also had multiple meanings. We then had to describe them by looking up their meaning in the dictionary and explaining in particular why we had chosen certain words and the personal meaning we had given them. This allowed me to reflect and gain a deeper understanding of what I want and who I am as a designer.

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Once the exercise was over, we gathered with the rest of the class and formed groups in which we wrote down our words and categorized them into different macro-groups. This was done in order to have a visual organization of everyone's common thoughts, which on a practical level can help those like me who get very lost if they don't write or draw their ideas down.

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We also had to imagine a “typical situation” in which there is interaction between the consumer and the object or objects created or to be created by us designers, in order to realize that works are not only created and exhibited, but how we visualize and contextualize them is very important for how our work is perceived. In fact, in just 150 words, I had to create a context and a story that made me understand how such a product should be presented and sold, but it also made me understand what kind of message I wanted to communicate and what kind of message I was communicating at that moment.

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In the second part of the exercise, we focused more on the material aspect, trying to choose one of the words from our CRP list, analyze its meaning, and perceive its key meanings. After that, the goal was to make as many prototypes as possible in a short time related to that concept, first making many rough, inaccurate products in a very short time, and then two or three finished objects that clearly functioned as a method of communication for the chosen word.

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I recently had the good fortune to visit an exhibition by Alphonse Mucha, the undisputed father of communication and branding in the first half of the 20th century. His illustrations were magnificent and innovative for their time, riding the wave of success at first, but when they began to fall slightly out of favor, the master decided to make them available for everyday use in Parisian life, placing his works on theater posters, restaurant napkins, menus, boxes, and candy wrappers, all to express the concept of refinement, elegance, and creativity/imagination in people's everyday lives.

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working with wood joinery and miserably failing to connect, why Edo? Because the cut was too close to the next one, and also because it was on the wrong side of the wood stick

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Inspired by the Conservatoire de Montreuil, in France, this shelf is meant to create space and harmony in a livingroom space...it was just an idea that I tried to shape by sketching it and modelling it, as well as shaping it in cardboard to understand which process is the right and most challenging in terms of testing with materials.

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Over the following days, I began testing my ideas, trying to work out the best approach for my projects, and asking myself how I could apply what I’d learnt from architecture in terms of spatial design and incorporate it into my own designs. As I continued my research, I tried to incorporate into my creative process something that was familiar to me, something I had already worked with and felt comfortable with, in order to break out of this creative block. I began to ask myself: what do I want to achieve and communicate? Why? How can I achieve the goal of drawing inspiration from architecture and design to produce something unique and special? Does what I want to express concern only uniqueness and functionality, or is there something else that can represent me?

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I visited the exhibition at Somerset House to broaden my horizons; I spoke to many designers and came to realise that their dedication to research enables them and their work to communicate and convey powerful messages through their craft. I realised that wood is truly what I want to work with and study, and this project during my Unit 2 can help me understand it much better. Despite my choice, I would still like to study how other materials come into play and assist me in my endeavour, both positively and negatively. Unfortunately, going to Somerset did not help me break out of my creative block, but it did spur me on to experiment and do more.

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Although I’m running a bit behind schedule, I’ve started creating shapes of objects and spaces that might help me break through a creative block and ask myself the right questions so I can figure out what to do. Sound is a subject that has always fascinated me – the way waves propagate, reflect, and spread is fascinating... I want to work with sound but I don’t know which direction to take: whether to delve into the in-depth study of sound waves, sound engineering, frequency and how to enhance their functions; or, on the other hand, whether my work is purely stylistic, creating incredibly crafted audio systems inspired by architecture that create an inclusive and attractive space within the very space in which they are exhibited.

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I want to work with sound and speakers, I am a designer who wants to increase the sound experience by making speakers inspired by architectural blueprints in order to increase some or all sounds' features (reverberation, sound quality, reflection, ect..). How can I use walls, cavities, or holes in a way that allows me to do so?

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In the weeks following Easter, I had the opportunity to study sound engineering in greater depth, along with the specific features of audio systems and how they work, learning about topics such as series and parallel connections, the principles behind the volume a woofer needs to function properly, and I also analysed the various types of volume openings that can be utilised to achieve different results when building a sound system.

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These are some of the examples I have come across and studied online and in books such as Sound System: The Political Power of Music, Loudspeakers, and The Sound System Design Primer. All these examples of sound boxes serve different purposes and yield different technical results; paradoxically, even those that are similar and operate on the same principles of acoustics exhibit differences, albeit ones that are almost imperceptible without the right tools.

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Once I’d chosen the shape I wanted to test, I ordered the components needed to test the sound and started with the first three shapes, realising their potential but also their limitations, whilst continuing to ask myself questions such as: are the bricks functional? Are they the right size, or should I make them bigger? How can I incorporate other materials as components within these shapes? Would plastic or metal work well with this type of project or material (wood)?

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Once I had tested everything, I decided to work backwards: first defining the answers to the questions I had asked before testing, and then using those answers to make certain decisions, particularly regarding dimensions and acoustics. With the help of the CNC machine, I cut the components I needed and assembled them.

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As this is a modular audio system, the ability to swap modules around is crucial. Following this logic, one aspect I had to take into account was ensuring that the sound quality remained unchanged even if the order of the speakers was altered. In this version, the first module houses two woofers inside and two bricks to create more controlled output space for the sound, with channels on either side to allow the air produced by the vibration of the woofer cone to pass through.

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I then created the other two modules, modelled on the designs I had previously selected based on their acoustic specifications, incorporating two new (temporary) materials: a perforated pyramid to act as a sound diffuser, and a 4mm-thick metal cylinder to direct the sound. Both feature structural channels to allow the sound and the air produced to pass through effectively.