I had been thinking to make a shape that can turn people on. So I came up with a lot of ideas at first, but finally decided to make a retreat and stretch structure which can replay to the touch of a finger. the product can be achieved in the process and interesting interaction.
At first, I wanted to use spiky bags to present this retreat and stretch to show the relationship between aggression and friendly interaction. But then I found those spikes very difficult to do the retreat and stretch movement. Then I folded a paper spring, which was very interesting. So I started to place it everywhere to see what connection would the organic shape create with other artifacts, people’s way of life, behavior and mental state.
I thought of turning it into a cup, a plant, a support structure…And finally, I found it interesting when it acted as a doorbell.
Doorbells in our mind are always super concise products, and shouldn’t take much space. They are mostly with white square bases and white round buttons. However, in ancient China, most families’ “doorbell” could be an iron loop fixed on the doors. Some of the families only had wood doors with nothing on it, and in government houses, they may have a big drum instead of little iron loops.
Different people knocking the doors with different emotion creating different stories.
For example, intellectuals might visit seclusive friends on the mountain, reaching the firewood door with their skinny hands from huge sleeves, gently and elegantly; a peasant women might visit relatives, holding the hand of her husband or kid in one hand, with the other hand knocking the door casually using an old iron loop, and she didn’t have to be polite; visitings between noblemen might be started with the verbal communication of their servants, instead of knocking doors by their own hands, no matter how delicate their iron loops were; and when a citizen suffering an injustice beat the drum with anger in front of a government house door, his desire for justice could be directly heard by the ears of the judges and other citizens.
However, in modern society, as people meet friends outside instead of home visiting, neighbors are isolated, fewer family members, the only person who pushes the doorbell is a stranger who is a courier. This results in the concise appearance of doorbells—white, as small as possible and not obvious. And as the action of pushing a button is modern people’s most familiar action, people spare no efforts, no time and no emotion to do it.
People also don’t like waiting. Everybody ringing the doorbell hopes the people inside can open the door right away. This impatience makes waiting time go even faster, one second becomes one minute. So people outside rang the bell more frequently, and the people in the house would hate the sound of doorbell next time. Thus, a vicious cycle makes the ringing of doorbell an unpleasant way of starting a visit.
So I hope that the interesting little spring can clearly act out the waiting time, but not in a way of telling you the exact minutes of seconds, instead, in the form of a “natural” way—stretching. The retreating of the paper spring from touching is like a shy look, or a quick react. And then the following slow stretching process which is like the stretching of the snail’s antenna is like it’s talking to you,”Who is there? Let me check, oh, it is you!”
If you have this interesting doorbell hanging beside the door, absolutely more people would like to knock at your door! Although as the video mentions, the doorbell is designed to prevent somebody ringing your doorbell too frequently, however, as ringing the doorbell becomes an interesting interaction, maybe people would enjoy keeping ringing your doorbell just to have fun?
See my instructable here!
