There has probably never been such an intense debate about the layout of the countryside as the one that is currently raging. There are serious concerns about the landscape, which is being rapidly transformed by urbanization and everything associated with this process, and not only in the Netherlands but also far beyond its borders. Everyone has something to say in this society-wide debate, from local to national governments, from environmental factions to the road-user's lobby, and from those who are professionally involved to concerned private parties. In many cases it is a battle between idealized images and economic models, between agricultural reality and urban park landscapes, between ecological concerns and mobility. This issue of OASE explores the potential significance of architectonic design for transformation processes on the regional scale. Besides considering the instruments that are available to the designer to fulfil this task, the authors also consider how the design can exercise a 'positive' influence on such processes. The various contributions shed light on the potential significance of territory in contemporary design practice and offer critical reflection on the topical discourse that has evolved over recent years.
DOCUMENT
In this paper we explore the influence of the physical and social environment (the design space) son the formation of shared understanding in multidisciplinary design teams. We concentrate on the creative design meeting as a microenvironment for studying processes of design communication. Our applied research context entails the design of mixed physical–digital interactive systems supporting design meetings. Informed by theories of embodiment that have recently gained interest in cognitive science, we focus on the role of interactive “traces,” representational artifacts both created and used by participants as scaffolds for creating shared understanding. Our research through design approach resulted in two prototypes that form two concrete proposals of how the environment may scaffold shared understanding in design meetings. In several user studies we observed users working with our systems in natural contexts. Our analysis reveals how an ensemble of ongoing social as well as physical interactions, scaffolded by the interactive environment, grounds the formation of shared understanding in teams. We discuss implications for designing collaborative tools and for design communication theory in general.
MULTIFILE
There is an increasing call in society for improvementof the well-being of nursing home residents and support of health care professionals through a wide array of architectural and technological solutions that are available in modern nursing homes. The design of nursing home facilities calls for new approaches that are designed to maximise the needs of the stakeholders..
LINK
This paper shows an overview of design practices of the XR-lab at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands. Over the course of six years, interdisciplinary teams of students have delivered 55+ prototypes in virtual, augmented, and mixed reality for a variety of 40+ clients. As human-computer interaction is entering a new evolutionary phase towards human-computer integration, new opportunities in extended reality (XR) have the potential to fundamentally alter human characteristics and abilities. Therefore, this paper begins with taking a philosophical stance on ‘being human’ and the anthropological concept of ‘liminality’ in XR-experiences. A further exploration of the concept of 'emotional rehearsal spaces' uses know-how from performance art, dance, architecture, and dramaturgy. Insights from tangible practices at the XR-lab show the cultural journey in XR-collaborations. This is made visible through a quick and dirty experiment on artistic thinking, design thinking, and system thinking, which shows how interdisciplinary collaborations are able to ignite new combinations of thought in design teams and individual professionals. Finally, we show an overview of specific design methods and tools that have been explored at the XR-lab over the years.
DOCUMENT
This investigation explores relations between 1) a theory of human cognition, called Embodied Cognition, 2) the design of interactive systems and 3) the practice of ‘creative group meetings’ (of which the so-called ‘brainstorm’ is perhaps the best-known example). The investigation is one of Research-through-Design (Overbeeke et al., 2006). This means that, together with students and external stakeholders, I designed two interactive prototypes. Both systems contain a ‘mix’ of both physical and digital forms. Both are designed to be tools in creative meeting sessions, or brainstorms. The tools are meant to form a natural, element in the physical meeting space. The function of these devices is to support the formation of shared insight: that is, the tools should support the process by which participants together, during the activity, get a better grip on the design challenge that they are faced with. Over a series of iterations I reflected on the design process and outcome, and investigated how users interacted with the prototypes.
DOCUMENT
Innovation is crucial for higher education to ensure high-quality curricula that address the changing needs of students, labor markets, and society as a whole. Substantial amounts of resources and enthusiasm are devoted to innovations, but often they do not yield the desired changes. This may be due to unworkable goals, too much complexity, and a lack of resources to institutionalize the innovation. In many cases, innovations end up being less sustainable than expected or hoped for. In the long term, the disappointing revenues of innovations hamper the ability of higher education to remain future proof. Against the background of this need to increase the success of educational innovations, our colleague Klaartje van Genugten has explored the literature on innovations to reveal mechanisms that contribute to the sustainability of innovations. Her findings are synthesized in this report. They are particularly meaningful for directors of education programs, curriculum committees, educational consultants, and policy makers, who are generally in charge of defining the scope and set up of innovations. Her report offers a comprehensive view and provides food for thought on how we can strive for future-proof and sustainable innovations. I therefore recommend reading this report.
DOCUMENT
Deciding what kind of smart cities do we, as a society, want is not only a political question but also a matter of envisioning possible futures. The speculative narratives that designers produce to support their imagination are called "Design Fictions." We share SUBMERGED, a cross-platform project that combines game design, interactive narrative, and urban exploration with the objective of empowering citizens to produce their design fictions. Following a "Research through Design" practice, we describe our process for creating SUBMERGED, we synthesize some critical insights from our experience, and we urgently call for a dialogue between semioticians and design researchers on these topics.
DOCUMENT
Design educators and industry partners are critical knowledge managers and co-drivers of change, and design graduate and post-graduate students can act as catalysts for new ideas, energy, and perspectives. In this article, we will explore how design advances industry development through the lens of a longitudinal inquiry into activities carried out as part of a Dutch design faculty-industry collaboration. We analyze seventy-five (75) Master of Science (MSc) thesis outcomes and seven (7) Doctorate (PhD) thesis outcomes (five in progress) to identify ways that design activities have influenced advances in the Dutch aviation industry over time. Based on these findings, we then introduce an Industry Design Framework, which organizes the industry/design relationship as a three-layered system. This novel approach to engaging industry in design research and design education has immediate practical value and theoretical significance, both in the present and for future research. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sheji.2019.07.003 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christine-de-lille-8039372/
MULTIFILE
When it comes to hard to solve problems, the significance of situational knowledge construction and network coordination must not be underrated. Professional deliberation is directed toward understanding, acting and analysis. We need smart and flexible ways to direct systems information from practice to network reflection, and to guide results from network consultation to practice. This article presents a case study proposal, as follow-up to a recent dissertation about online simulation gaming for youth care network exchange (Van Haaster, 2014).
DOCUMENT
Academic design research often fails to contribute to design practice. This dissertation explores how design research collaborations can provide knowledge that design professionals will use in practice. The research shows that design professionals are not addressed as an important audience between the many audiences of collaborative research projects. The research provides insight in the learning process by design professionals in design research collaborations and it identifies opportunities for even more learning. It shows that design professionals can learn about more than designing, but also about application domains or project organization.
DOCUMENT
