The Collapsible and The Modular

Welcome! The Collapsible and the Modular is a small blog branch of the tree that is brainaxle ideas, dedicated to finding and examining products which make use of two of Brian's favorite industrial design techniques - that which is collapsible¹, and that which is modular. Brian says:

By now we should be past excessive, bigger-is-better notions. More products are coming to fruition which allow us, even encourage us to only take up as much space as we actually need. To better make use of small spaces while still having the products we need to lead a comfortable, normal life.

Indeed, collapsibility has obvious space-saving intentions. Modularity can produce a similar result - one 'base product' with several modules to make it function in different manners takes up far less room than several entire units would. Additionally, modularity can allow for cheaper and/or easier repair, greater customizability, and in fact a form of collapsibility when all modules are disassembled. Open standards in modularity encourage the former two points, as well as standards which are 'forced' open by reverse engineering.

Our purpose here, then, is to examine products which make use of these techniques. Finding new collapsible and/or modular designs. Questioning why they were made the way they were, to what end. Questioning how successful the end result is. Wondering what products could be improved by these methods, and how.

The products can be simple. Take for example, the Jiffy 7 pellet-based seed-starting and propagation system:

Jiffy trays are collapsible in the sense that they have a lid which helps create a greenhouse effect for sprouting seeds. When the lid is no longer necessary, the tray nests inside the lid…

Simple collapsibility. Additionally, Jiffy trays are modular…

The growing medium comes in cheap discs which expand when wetted. Once a plant has been transplanted, a new growing module can be set in the tray, ready to sprout another seed.

Some of the things discussed here will be as dead-simple as the Jiffy system. Others, like folding bikes, collapsing kitchen measures and modular flashlights are truly ingenious rethinkings of existing products. We hope this blog will encourage others to think about a shrunken lifestyle, and how modern industrial design allows us to live such.

1 : I use the term collapsibility in the same basic sense that Per Mollerup does in his book, Collapsible - that is, that which is larger in use than it is in storage. This could be expanded even further, and merely serves as a basic foundation for a concept of collapsibility.