Justus Poggenburg

My project colleagues and I applied our minds to opening and closing mechanisms in the “In and Out” project, mostly with reference to doorlike objects. In the course of our research I encountered several situations and objects other than doors with opening and closing functions – garage and barrier systems for instance.

But I was most interested in conducting research into containers. I built a model of one as a means of grasping all the components in its opening and closing mechanisms. All these parts – door leafs, bars, handles, claws and their holding devices, hinges attached to both the door leafs and the body of the container, fastenings for the bars, locks for the handles and even the seal that has to be broken open – made me aware of just how complex mechanisms I had always taken for granted actually are.

I applied what I had realised to the situation of a main entrance door. First I identified all the components that showed me how they function and are used. These include the door leaf with its edges, the frame, the handle and the hinges. A doorbell, camera and intercom may also be involved. I hadn’t realised prior to the project that there is a form of communication between door objects (with opening and closing mechanisms); I had operated furniture in a perfunctory way that was stored in my memory banks as an automated process.

And wherever the means of opening or closing a door is not readily discernible, information is provided on stickers or labels. All the aforementioned components and communication features are visual. We appropriate information through the acts of seeing and reading, whereafter it is processed by our brain. There is only one point at which we enjoy a physical link with the door and that’s when we push or pull the handle.

It was at this point that a question came to me that influenced the further course of my project:
Is it possible to intuitively decode the data for pushing and pulling by establishing a link with a particular shape, material or other property possessed by the door handle?

I began by drafting a handle that was to intuitively communicate precisely this information, i.e. how it is to be pushed or pulled. My first draft-designs were as varied as could be. Despite having the same point of departure, one draft-design contained more information than the other.

The version on the right shows a familiar shape of door handle, one in which the information on pushing and pulling is conveyed by the nature of the materials used – a hard material for stability and a softer material suggestive of a surface to be pressed against. The user’s hand virtually sinks into the material and predefines the direction of motion in this way.

A second draft-design was of an organic looking shape and was given a thumbrest. Here, too, use was made of two materials. It became evident, however, that this handle is more difficult to decode and that, hence, its operation does not necessarily proceed intuitively.

Further models followed, including one with a tube as its grip, information on the operation of which might be conveyed in a manner that could be misunderstood, despite the fact that the process would be quite fun.

I paid thought throughout the process to whether aspects of my own work correlated in any way with that of Otl Aicher. The “In and Out” project is, after all, being run as a discourse on his work and in collaboration with FSB. Looking back I can state that correlations of this kind do, indeed, exist.

My door handles constitute the point at which the various strands of Aicher’s creative output converge, not least the Four-Point Guide to Good Grip he authored:

1. Thumbrest,
2. Forefinger furrow,
3. Gripping volume,
4. Support for the palm.