Currently we know several different types of design. The
architectural design answers the question: where (and how) do we want to live?
While the interior design gives an answer to this one: how do we fill the
spaces we live in? Then, there is the fashion design, whose reference question
is clearly: how do we want to dress? And finally (but it's actually not the
last one) there is the industrial design, that tries to answer to a more
complex “ but not less important “ query: given a series of objects that we are
bound (or willing) to use almost every day, how do we want them to look like?
In other words, design as a whole tries to shape things, both plastically and
symbolically, with a functional an aesthetical purpose. With a significant exception:
mechanical design.
This last tries to answer the following question: how can I make things work to
their full potential?
What exactly is mechanical design?
Describing in a few words what exactly is the mechanical
design discipline is pretty hard, since it involves a series of competences and
skills, as well as a specific background of studies. Basically, it's the
evolution of mechanical engineering, which means that branch of engineering
that deals with the mechanical working of objects and the way we can combine
them in order to obtain a specific movement and/or action. Mechanical design
aims to refine this discipline, with the purpose of optimizing the performances
of every single gear, tool and machinery,
making at the same time this optimization consistent over time. The final goal
would be providing the industry world a set of machinery able to get the
maximum result with minimum effort, both in terms of consumption of energy and
materials and deterioration of the machinery itself.
As the mechanical design tools available on the market got
more and more refined, precise and sophisticated, with an increasing number of
functions and a more intuitive interface, they became almost indispensable for
every design studio. As of today, nobody could think of working in the design
sector without a 3D CAD software able to create a virtual environment that
gives back an immediate visualization of a project.
What are the benefits of mechanical design?
On the other hand, the benefits that the application of
mechanical engineering through the most evolved software products bring to the
entire industrial production process are undeniable. Just consider the
substantial saving of time, the easiness of every communication (for example
with the clients, who are now able to have a comprehensive view of the overall
design process, even while it's still ongoing), the possibility to create a
network of design studios, each one of them specialized in one specific aspect
of a bigger project, and all of them constantly updated about the progress made
by the other sectors.
These brief hints alone would suffice to explain why a
relatively new discipline such as mechanical design has become, in just a few
decades (more or less from the middle of last century) the real core of every
design work. But if it's not enough, we can summarize all the benefits that it
implied in just a couple of sentences. It has made the designers' work much
easier. And at the same time it has made the designers' clients much more
satisfied.
