For Fundamentos 2 of the Master of Design at Universidad de los Andes, each student was assigned an existing product to fully deconstruct, covering materials, manufacturing, and life cycle, before being allowed to design anything of their own. Mine was the Bobble Infuse, a reusable water bottle designed by Karim Rashid, a deceptively simple object built from patented, squeezable plastic and a swappable activated-carbon filter that can also hold a fruit infuser.
Using classroom frameworks, namely Bruno Munari's analysis method and Dieter Rams' principles of good design, I researched the bottle's history (plastic's shift from disposable material to design-respected medium, traced through Philippe Starck's 1990s chairs and Karim Rashid's own trajectory since 2010), then took the object apart physically, identifying its exact polymers, its target user, and its full life cycle from oil extraction through manufacturing, retail, consumer use, and recycling.
From there the assignment moved into fabrication, producing accurate technical drawings and prototypes of the cap, the flip-top mouthpiece, and the bottle body itself, specifying materials (high-resolution red ABS and TPU) and production methods (3D-printed prototyping) for each part, and sourcing real local suppliers in Bogotá for materials ranging from silicone rubber to acrylic display cases.
The result was a complete technical dossier, combining historical research, materials and manufacturing analysis, life-cycle mapping, and fabricated component prototypes, that reconstructed exactly how an everyday product like the Bobble Infuse is designed, made, and eventually discarded or recycled. It was submitted for the Master of Design's Fundamentos 2 course under Professor Margarita EchavarrÃa, 2017.