Chhatrapati Semiya
4 min readJul 13, 2020

Nature and Form II

Nature and its form are implied to design even in its simplest form. The principle of natural form can be a valuable guide to design products.

We had a natural object to choose to study, observe its form and function. I chose the emperor scorpion and started by sketching the object in different views and angles, learning how it behaves in different conditions,

and added some 3d sketching with wires. The intention was to simplify its form while retaining the characteristics of a scorpion.

… this is the continuation after

13 JULY 2020

As a warm-up, I sketched the form again and chose a view from where I could capture the attributes of scorpion better.

ABSTRACTION

Taking the attributes of the scorpion, simplifying it, and using it for different applications.

This is an abstraction form function of the mesosoma (back of the scorpion) segments. It bends its body when it is in an attacking posture.

Just like mesosoma segments of a scorpion, the legs of the table are made flexible by small wood cubes and joints. This helps in having different table postures.

Simplifying form with minimal lines

Further applying the minimal structure to make a product i.e. a Soap and Scrubber Holder

FORM VIEW:

Emperor scorpion makes this posture while attacking its prey and defending itself from predators.

The key attributes that this form shows are:
- Aggressive
- Sharp
- Flexible

First, I made the form softer to understand the threshold of the from that when does the form starts to lose its key features :

Attributes:

1. AGGRESSIVE- The aggressiveness of the form decreases while going from Figures 1- 4.

2. SHARP- the overall sharpness also lessens, figure 4th being the softest.

3. FLEXIBLE- unlike the other two features flexibility increases from figure 1 to 4th being the most flexible.

Next, I tried to increase the aggression and sharpness of the form while minimizing the lines of the form.

here fig.1 and 2 are a lot similar to look at but there are some differences that make the fig.1 more aggressive that fig.2 while fig.2 is sharper than fig.1

In fig.1 the main body(shown by green lines) lines looks like they are converging and the disproportion in the upper and baseline makes it more intrusive.
fig.2 is sharper as the tail(shown by blue lines) has more edges and points even the front portion(red lines) looks more sharp than fig.1.

Studying the pedipalp in same manner:

6th being the softest and being close to an oval shape sharpness decreases.

Form influenced product exploration

After abstracting the form, we had to design a lamp or teapot inspired by our individual form. I explored with the teapot .