Antonia Hecker

We initially went through the general principles of entry and exit in the "In and Out" project. We soon established that such operations can take several forms; one could, for instance, be going from one room to another or one could, instead, be entering or leaving a building.

My personal research began with a walk through my home town, during which I focused exclusively on house entrances. I was pretty impressed by how many different kinds there were on just one street: I photographed more than 50 house entrances, door handles and doorknobs. A door handle can speak volumes. Quite frequently, for example, you can tell what type of shop you're entering by its shape.

My bakery just down the road has a pretzel-shaped door handle, the lottery shop a lottery symbol as its knob. Doorknobs in brass additionally caught my attention. That's because the more a brass knob is used, the more golden and glossy its surface becomes. If it's not used that frequently, its surface remains dull and dark.

A good example of this are double doors fitted with brass knobs. Their shiny appearance makes it clear which side the entrance is on and which side the exit.

Before I proceeded to the drafting phase, I summarised the physical procedure involved in opening a door: the door is unlocked by turning a key and depressing a handle whilst the user also presses their own body weight against the door.

So as to be able to better understand the unlocking mechanism, I recreated a lock case. It occurred to me as I did so that a lock case invariably contains two mechanisms: one for the handle and one for the lock. The thought of combining the two led me to my final blueprint, which I dubbed "händy".

I liked the idea of essentially carrying the handle around on one's person and of only having to provide the door with a keyhole. Inspired by a keyring, a penknife and a ring, I devised three prototypes as a means of putting my idea of combining handle and key into practice.

I ultimately focused on the ring model. The first 3D-print of the model was 3.2 inches (8 cm) in circumference, which was too big and unwieldy. I reduced this to 2.4 inches ( 6 cm), a size I felt sat nicely In my hand.