Explanation

 

Visiting the massive MEDICA Fare in Germany, in the medical context where trends happen on various scales, in the long and short-term. It was interesting to meet professionals from all over the world, and see that to understand and exploit a trend, you have to sell your idea/business to not designers, but other scientists, corporates, fundraisers etc. in that specific context. Organizing, classifying and selecting what we observed and gathered was useful to understand how to identify a trend, and frame your role in the trend. This connected to an assignment on analyzing existing designers and extract their designer DNA. In my case, what made Hella Jongerius unique and how  she used that to sell her work.

 

 

Reflection

 

Discussing the work of Designers that are often featured in museums, a lot of people were not able to grasp why conceptual work is interesting to sell in the first place. This made me interested in using art & conceptual research as a way to sell an idea without making a utilitarian product, but also aware of how precisely to frame that idea to communicate it to others. I managed pretty well to explain to my team why the work of for example Hella is novel and opens up ideas to others. I consider myself analytical and explorative, and trend watching requires both of these, making it a way to work for others.

 

 

Explanation

 

In the beginning of this course we watched lectures and discussions to understand innovation management basics with a focus on retailer trends. This connected to the complex stakeholder case worked on: creating a new shop display for a Bang & Olufsen store aimed at youth products. Our stakeholders were a B&O retailer, a company who creates new store displays and our lecturers. We were encouraged to match our solution to the trend of retailers becoming shopping centers.

 

 

Reflection

 

The few weeks we interviewed the store owner, documented and observed his customers in search of an opportunity to redesign a display. Since we were encouraged to think about the experience trend, we, and most other groups, looked to create an experience within the product displays. However, our midterm was hardly novel and surely would not fix the issue of bad sales.

 

Reading B&O documents for their stakeholders, I found that their youth line was doing bad in sales, but only in the west. The real problem occurred was not with the current shop displays, but in the store's image. I talked to shoppers and the target group to find a solution that matched the trend of retailer as experience center; B&O coffee and play. More a service than a product display, it focused to communicate an experience; luxurious yet comforting for new customers.

 

I analyzed our proposition in a SWOT analysis; Board of Innovation tool; Value flow model; Perspective value model and Value proposition canvas. This process was similar to a design research process, but motivated by a real business context. Since what we found was more knowledge-based than a product, it was crucial to consider how we framed our opportunity.

 

In the final presentation I illustrated the issue by asking the students who entered a B&O store, and nearly nobody raised their hands. Our proposition presentation, a Starbucks like front window display, was graded with a 9 and I got compliments on my analyzation of the complex stakeholder situation. There was still room to make the business models more detailed and explore how we would connect B&O stores to their suppliers.

 

 

 

 

 

Explanation

 

A series of lectures introduced us into ways to apply IoT and the ethics in relation between humans and machines. Through interaction analysis we came up with functions and interactions for a module that should work in connection to all 10 other modules. The final goal was to create an escape room using 5 or more modules with bonus points for creating a unique sensory experience. A requirement was that the story should have multiple loops, being able to reset and have a different outcome depending on the choices made.

 

 

Reflection

 

We created a heart module as the core of the escape room experience. The narrative focused on a story about cyborgs. We created a playful challenges that used different senses in a dark room. My personal challenge was to code our and other modules in a system. My team members and I came up with a narrative and which other modules fit in the cyborg theme and it was my personal challenge to actually design the interactions by coding the modules. In the final experience the heart is giving the participants feedback on their escape progress and creates tension in the room with it's LED beating and sounds. Challenges involved elements of surprise like dancing or freezing to influence bring the heartbeat back to a normal level and a non-linear progress; the code chose one of the participants as secret cyborg and gave them and the team the choice of who could escape. I learned how to create functions to communicate sensor values over the OOCSI network, create a modular code system which allows for any reset loop, and create advanced interactions with multiple connected sensors and actuators. Talking to software engineers of other groups worked out great, but it proved much harder for me to clearly communicate my progress to my teammates, as I was the only person doing the coding.

 

 

Explanation

 

My group encountered the first debate in the form of what method and level of provocation was most effective in bringing about societal change. Initially we tried for an offensive take on actual debates; meat-industry, refugee crisis by making bold design statements in fashion items for a museum. The museum context did not reach the audience we aimed for and we continued to search for a dogma instead. The design now had to focus on bringing a dogma, raising our children with little to no risk, and its consequences to light. The first design iteration tried this as subtle as possible, but the debate was to ambiguous and became the subject for debate itself. Our final iteration and presentation was a catalogue of children's toys that promoted risk as inherent part of learning, failing and playing.

 

 

Reflection

 

The course Design for Debate showed me ways to design for societal impact through provocation. It was especially interesting to analyze the differences between dogmas, taboos, etc. Practically, I learned more about rhetoric, structures of argumentation. In the bigger picture I got insight on how to make my own and others perspective on current norms and values of our culture debatable through design. The design process challenged me and my group to find a way very clear about OUR intentions as designer, and exposed our different approaches to analyzing societal changes.

 

 

 

 

REFLECTION

 

Brain Body Behaviour delved into cognitive neuroscience and gave me a broader understanding of the human psyche, its behavior, and has made me familiar with some of the terminology of neuroscience. Part of this course was to write a pop-science article on a in-depth scientific article. A big part of the lecturers explanation was illustrating phenomena of our mind by giving explanations; illusions, examples, thought experiments. This is where I found opportunities for design to embody these explanations in experiences. Not the 'hard' knowledge itself but being aware of how to link this to our own understanding of it proved useful in Muziekmagneet.

Explanation

 

In my B2.1, I researched the role of creativity (specifically knitting) in elderly housing and found that creative thinking was more important for the elderly to break the monotone than creating something. Me and my teammate sparked their curiosity more than the knitting itself. This problem is relevant for many elderly in care homes. In order to tackle this problem, we have researched a combination of two social stimuli, namely creative therapy and interactive installations.

 

 

Reflection

 

To combine the two social stimuli we wanted to take the scheduled aspect of creative therapy and replace it with the permanent aspect of interactive installations. This creates a creative therapy with permanent access. The data which we have gathered is qualitative, and is acquired through personal interviews and contextual inquiries, partly in association with an existing creative therapy. We expected to find the possibility for a better social stimuli. In contradiction to our hypothesis, we found that a permanent aspect within creative therapy does not have effect on its social value. We also found that stimulating cognitive creativity, rather than practical creativity, triggers social

inclusion.

 

 

Explanation

 

This architecture main course included workshops in sketching, philosophy lectures and creating a project that explains and explores a vision on space based on the work of Auguste Choisy. The final model explores the absence of viewpoint, volumes of space as material, and how a fourth dimension of time can extend perceived space (shadows).

 

 

Reflection

 

In this course I learned a lot about how philosophy can be used to critique and sharpen the presentation of concepts in a design (building, drawing, product). In the drawing classes I explored how impressions of experience can be communicated. This was the first time a designer entered the course and I think I was able to blend in well and talking the language of architects gave me insight on the relation of architects and design, as well as find value in their literature and concepts of human perception.

 

I got interested in definitions of space, and explored this conceptually in hearhear. It was not until finishing Muziekmagneet, that I fully understood that designs can conceptualize abstract ideas and make them experiencable.