My design work varies from the poetic to the pragmatic. With self-initiated projects, I tend to design for the domestic sphere, at the scale of the individual, and often without a lot of technology. My academic projects involve greater ethnographic research and participatory methods and tend toward systems-, service-, and strategic-design. The images below represents the "making" aspect of my design practice, often in collaboration with Stephanie M. Tharp and our studio, materious.
It’s tragically ironic that tobacco was first celebrated for its medicinal value while its contemporary legacy is of disease and addiction. For the smoker, there is a strong link between time and the next cigarette. The Next clock speaks to this symbolically, but it and can also be used to regulate actual consumption by placing cigarettes in the holes for the desired smoking times and then removing when time to smoke.
NEXT
Smoker's Clock
Corian, clock components
2009

The French ambassador to Portugal, Jean Nicot, returned to Paris in 1561 with the tobacco plant, believing it to have great medicinal properties and capable of healing even “King’s Evil,” a form of tuberculoses. While the tobacco plant itself was initially called Nicotina, today “nicotine” refers only to its active, addictive ingredient.

Original MDF prototype

Red corian interior to evoke affected inner organs
