Category: Thinking

Theory and musings

  • white models on a white background, from left to right: speaker, drawer pull, speaker, lamp, chess piece, speaker, door handle

    The Cai Modeling Materials, MDes Thesis pt. 1

    For my industrial design masters thesis at the University of Illinois at Chicago, I developed plastic-free modeling materials. Cai Board can serve as a replacement for extruded polystyrene foam. Cai Clay is an air-drying clay that is an alternative to plastic-based clays.

    Mari

    |

  • gif showing the layers of the a B&W page being built, each image of a water layering over part of another image, and finally the text "if a screen is textureless, does water have a texture?"

    Textural Translations

    In some ways, we live in a more texturally diverse world than we did pre-Industrial Revolution, considering advances in technology combined with novel materials. But our textures tend to have a more shallow relief than they used to.

    Mari

    |

  • Gif of Mari standing then kneeling with a fist pumping into the air in front of her panels

    A Haptic Blank

    With the texture of water as inspiration, I created acoustic panels that not only absorb sound, but play sound when touched. 

    Mari

    |

  • a red house with a white framed window. Five signs in the window read: "Breathe.", "This is hard.", "Be kind to yourself." "You are resilient.", and "#RecoveryMovement"

    De-stigmatizing Opioid Addiction

    Between 1999 and 2019, the opioid epidemic killed nearly 841,000 people in the US. Opioids change the physical structure of the brain so that people with Opioid Use Disorder feel like they will die without opioids. People cannot just will themselves out of an addiction. How might we break stigmas so we can support people…

    Mari

    |