I propose that moving your groceries from the store to your kitchen cabinets should not be a hassle.
I propose that after every shopping trip you should not be left with a sea of plastic bags, most of which will never be used again.
I propose that a food transport can be designed that allows you to carry at least a week's worth of groceries without the use of a car and without killing your back or shoulders in the process.
I propose a method of separating groceries in which one can avoid the classic squished bread syndrome and fearing for his/her ratio of chips to crumbs once they get home.
I propose that such a food transport can be designed to be lightweight and collapsible enough that one can always have it on them and break the vicious cycle of "I forgot the cavas bag again."
As a senior at the University of Michigan I have a 7-month opportunity to design an innovative method for transporting groceries with all of the goals mentioned above.
Therefore I propose to explore a line of lightweight, collapsible food transports for urban locations that provide the user with a stress-free shopping commute through the use of multi-functional design.
I have surrounded myself with images of precedents and inspirations for the purpose of creating a well-rounded design. This include things like luggage design, which already has to address several of the issues I'll need to consider like compactness, maneuverability, and weight. I've also taken notes on products like the Go-Caddy which is a new food transport design that is being worked on right now by the company Quirky and allows its user to expand and contract the caddy to two volume sizes. Wading through grocery bag forums I've discovered great designs for cloth bags that fold up incredibly small from companies like Baggu, Flip and Tumble, Envirosax, RuMe and more. As far as other inpirations I've spent hours pouring through design blogs and take inspirations in anything from the foldable hiking shoe by Timberland to the two pound tent created by Sierra Designs.
After familiarizing myself with what has come before me I started experimenting with some form studies of collapsible design. I started with paper lantern design which utilizes a bellow form for compression. Its simple, it works and its been used over and over again by other everyday products such as laundry baskets, leaf collectors and even water jugs. I've played with other simple collapsible frameworks that fold up into a single line, discovering along the way that nothing is as simple as it looks.
I've also taken inspiration from the work of Ernestto Netto and and way he uses the transformative properies of nylon to create unique and comforting sculptures and installations.
Materials I would like to explore further are Ripstop Nylon and Tyvek because both are very lightweight, flexible, and durable.
At the moment I'm starting to build full scale models. This process includes getting getting strangle looks from people at the local salvation army as I haul combinations of things like baby buggies and rollerblades up to the checkout. Now that I have some wheels to play around with, let the building begin. I expect to have three models constructed by the end of next week!
