Inspired by the beating sun we’ve experienced in London recently, Design Lobster #114 is exploring the theme of sunlight ☀️ across both physical and digital design. From user interface design that responds to its environment to an unusual Modernist shutter in the French Riviera. Get your shades on and let’s go 😎
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Question: What is anisotropic design?
Above: A concept interface showing an anisotropic watch-face.
Anisotropism is a scientific word that describes materials that have different properties depending on the direction in which you measure them. For example a crystal might reflect light differently depending on its angle or a slate would have different levels of strength depending on where you hit it. Since roughly 2019, the term has come to have a digital connotation too, describing a virtual object that takes on a different appearance depending on the angle from which you view it.
As you can see in the video above, the light and shadows on the digital watch-face respond to the tilt of the device as if they are actually being caused by the position of the sun itself. Indeed, the illusion goes even further – when a finger is placed on the camera, the watch is plunged into darkness and only the glow-in the-dark elements are visible.
This sort of design has been mooted as a potential successor to the “flat” user interfaces we’ve become accustomed to ever since the launch of iOS 7 in 2013. Rather than crudely mimicking the real-world with elaborate textures in our interfaces, we might instead use the raft of sensors in modern devices to light them up and make them feel as if they are sat within the same environment as we are. If you ask me, it’s just this sort of design language that Apple will be bringing to their upcoming VR headset 👀
Design takeaway: How could your design use anisotropic effects?
✍️ I wrote a longer essay on the historical roots of so-called “flat design” here
Object: Circular roof-light cover
Tempe à Pailla (literally a place to yawn in the local French dialect) was one of only two villas that designer and architect Eileen Gray built in her lifetime. Much less well-known than the other villa E-1027, it was built about ten years later in the early 1930’s as her private residence. Situated high up in the hills behind Menton it perches like a white Modernist ship on thick stone walls.
Like all of Gray’s buildings, the plan of Tempe à Pailla is carefully oriented with respect to the sun. And as is also characteristic of her architecture there are a variety of shutters, louvres and sliding doors that allow the occupant to fine-tune the light they receive in each room according to their needs. Unqiuely, this house also features a circular roof-light cover in the bedroom that rotates over the opening like the moon over the sun during an eclipse. I love design like this that makes something as ordinary as drawing a blind feel magical, even cosmic.
Design takeaway: How could your design alter to respond to the sun?
🪑 In Design Lobster #5 we admired a rather eccentric chair designed by Eileen Gray
Quote: “The sun never knew how great it was until it hit the side of a building.”
– Louis Kahn, architect
I have seen fewer of Louis Kahn’s buildings than I would have liked, but those I have seen have moved me deeply in the same way a poem or piece of art can. I love this quote from him, because it speaks to the capacity of great design to genuinely enhance the world. Just as a well-designed wall can reveal the beauty of sunlight, so can other works of design reveal aspects of our environment or society that we might otherwise not appreciate so much.
Have a great (and hopefully sunny) week,
Ben 🦞
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Anisotropic effects. Very cool. I was in an AR startup for a year and we were developing some pretty cool apps. VR when they can bring in realism like the level in that watch, will be a total game changer.
Inspiring writing, revealing stories: a good start to the week.