Design students scoop international award
Charlotte Knottenbelt
Two UniSA students have been living it up in New York after winning an
international competition for their design of a timepiece that fits in
with the body's natural rhythms.
Second year interior architecture student Jaquie Hagan and fourth year industrial design student Matthew Braithwaite (pictured) collaborated on an entry for an international competition run by US-based watchmaker Timex to celebrate its 150th year of operation, and their design was chosen from thousands of entries to win runner up in the competition.
The brief was to design a timepiece for 150 years hence, and Hagan and Braithwaite designed the Orgarhythm, a device constructed entirely from organic materials that is swallowed and travels to the hand where it internally projects onto the hand when activated.
Designed assuming that in 150 years a total understanding of biology will have placed life and technology in an entirely new context, Orgarhythm tunes into the user’s personal rhythms and provides readings on blood pressure, energy levels and cholesterol. It also includes an inbuilt alarm clock that wakes you up naturally, without any annoying rings – and it tells the time.
“We wanted to design something that wasn’t based on digital technology, because we figured the world would be beyond that in 150 years time,” says Hagan.
“While it’s very futuristic in the way it melds biology and technology, there are aspects that are timeless – for instance, we chose to locate it on the hand both for practical reasons and because historically hands have played an important role in the telling of time.”
Hagan and Braithwaite’s design will be featured in an exhibition that opened in New York in late September – and after drumming up sponsorship to help them get there, the two were in New York at the time that Students@UniSA went to print.