Blending cultures.
Turn your face toward the sun and the shadows will fall behind you.
Ancient Maori proverb
Both Maori and Japanese cultures have traditions and artifacts which hold ceremonial or cultural value. During the ideation phase it was important to unlock the potential in items or products that provoked similar actions and told a story.
Through sketch ideation it was clear that applying cultural context to everyday products, the blend of a Mere/Patu-Sensu was identified was conceived quite early on in the iterative process, however it was important to explore all avenues before committing to that blend.
After carefully considering the sketches and entering the design tool kit process of the lotus blossom, it was clear that the Mere/Patu-Sensu blend optimised the cultural, affordance and hand gesture actions that brought these culturally significant artifacts together.
Fabrication processes
The early prototype and fabrication processes relied heavily on attaining a good level of affordance. Foam was utilised to build initial prototype function and informed a slimmed down more refined aesthetic keeping in line with attributes of authentic mere and patu form language.
