The design idea of “counter-constraint” is to create things in such a way as to get around some constraint – for example, open source hardware works without patents or copyrights.
A brilliant example of counter-constraint is Italian designer Enzo Mari’s “democratic furniture” manual, autoprogettazione? [PDF], which explains how to make beautiful furniture out of unfinished lumber and nails, made almost entirely with squared-off cuts (no fancy mitering or curves that you can’t easily make with a handsaw).
The folks at Crapfutures have been building many of Mari’s designs (shown above, a ping-pong table), and using the projects to talk about counter-constraint in design practice.
