This visual essay focuses on how conflict has continually shaped design throughout history. This essay is divided into two sections to show the contrasts and similarities between our medieval history and our modern history, looking at our innovation and how we deal with the aftermath.
Different periods of time led us to have different limitations and different levels of technology, we can see how our far ancestors adapted to conflict in a different way how we do today. However, we still hold similar core fundamental needs that must be met and this becomes apparent if we look into our history. Our instinctual want to survive is what makes conflict a driving force in the design world, where that be a need for a weapon to defend ourselves or …show more content…
This requires at least two sides in order to happen, whether that be two individuals or two entire countries. Conflict has an interesting property in which is propels an evolution of designs to occur. This evolution is the by-product of the two sides seeking to counter and outperform each other for the sake of victory. Throughout history, we can see many examples of this ranging from medieval Europe to the modern day.
Looking at a purely functional example, we can look towards the battlefields of medieval Europe. The most common form of protection on the battlefields pre-chainmail was called a “gamberson” which was essentially many layers of cloth stitched together like a padded jacket. This would provide some protection against sword slashes and impacts from arrows, but a thrust from a spear or narrow sword would puncture through and most likely result in the death of the wearer. The response to this was the designing and making of chainmail. Thousands of individual iron rings riveted together to create an iron suit that would stop and cuts from being effective while turning lethal thrusts into a small flesh wound (commonly gamberson was worn underneath the chainmail so if it did slightly penetrate it would be stopped by the rest of the
Different periods of time led us to have different limitations and different levels of technology, we can see how our far ancestors adapted to conflict in a different way how we do today. However, we still hold similar core fundamental needs that must be met and this becomes apparent if we look into our history. Our instinctual want to survive is what makes conflict a driving force in the design world, where that be a need for a weapon to defend ourselves or …show more content…
This requires at least two sides in order to happen, whether that be two individuals or two entire countries. Conflict has an interesting property in which is propels an evolution of designs to occur. This evolution is the by-product of the two sides seeking to counter and outperform each other for the sake of victory. Throughout history, we can see many examples of this ranging from medieval Europe to the modern day.
Looking at a purely functional example, we can look towards the battlefields of medieval Europe. The most common form of protection on the battlefields pre-chainmail was called a “gamberson” which was essentially many layers of cloth stitched together like a padded jacket. This would provide some protection against sword slashes and impacts from arrows, but a thrust from a spear or narrow sword would puncture through and most likely result in the death of the wearer. The response to this was the designing and making of chainmail. Thousands of individual iron rings riveted together to create an iron suit that would stop and cuts from being effective while turning lethal thrusts into a small flesh wound (commonly gamberson was worn underneath the chainmail so if it did slightly penetrate it would be stopped by the rest of the