Video Refection - Objectified

Design can be intangible, like softwares, websites, systems.. but for us industrial designers, tangible designs still play the most parts. Colour, texture, feels, and most importantly, the shape, its form, because the products you choose reflects who you are. In products, the form speaks. It can be arguably said that designers spend most of the design process designing the form, going back and forth making prototypes, testing it out, reiterating. It is a long and tiring process. When I am designing for the lsat project for instance, I find it very hard to find a form that fits that particular design, there are disagreement between group members. This shows that people have different thoughts on what form/shape suits what purpose/design/style, and I believe that there's no one perfect answer to that. Furthermore, it is becoming more and more evident that the concept of 'form follows function' does not apply anymore. Due to the technological era, everything is hidden under a chip. Phones and TVs now flat, there's no special shape to them. However, an argument to this would be the fact that every design detail has to have a reason to be there. If it's not there, would it still be functional? Would it make any difference? If it doesn't make any difference, then it could be omitted. But I have to say, Apple is quite brave putting forward a block of aluminium in the market; the iPhone - it couldn't be simpler. It's flat, there's nothing except for a few buttons for locking/unlocking, volume and SIM card. I wonder what they were thinking when they introduced that into the market, did they think it would work out great or were they just testing their luck? But they're probably not selling the form, rather the technology? It was a breakthrough for the company, and for the century, either way.

One part of the video that really is very inspirational i think, is the 'good design' list by Dieter Rams:

good design should be innovative

good design should make a product useful

good design is aesthetic design

good design should make a product understandable

good design is honest

good design is unobtrusive

good design is long lived

good design is consistent in every detail

good design is environmentally friendly

good design is as little as possible

(... all of which Apple has achieved. The last part there relates back to what I have said in the previous paragraph)

A good design should fit in everyday lives, so subtly that people don't even realized it has been designed, something that just had to be there, as if it was born with the world.

Another thing that I liked from the video is when Jonathan Ive mentioned how important it is to keep asking 'WHY', and by doing so we are constantly designing. I totally agree, and rewind back to when we were kids, we like to ask 'why', and this is how we learn things, it's how we learn at the fastest rate.

A very interesting aspect raised by the video was the price of good design. As we know, good design by famous designers costs a lot. They should be accessible, but it is 'designed', therefore it's more expensive. This contradicts the whole concept of mass-production by industrial designers. If there's no one who can afford it, it can't be mass produced. But people has been so accustomed to the belief that when something costs more, it is of better quality.. and in most cases, it's true. We have been taught to minimize cost for the products we're designing, but it's just to maximize profits, not to make the product cheaper so that it's available to everyone. Even though in both cases it's minimizing cost, the end result is different. I think it's quite important that we move from profit-driven to focusing simply on improving the society's lives. It is going to be hard, and possibly impossible..

Reflection on Assignment 2 : PSS

I’ve never heard of the term Product Service System before taking on this project, and I didn’t realize there are so many PSS out there already. The main idea is to share things together to reduce the environmental impact. The concept of PSS is good – emphasizing on the service rather than the product, because you don’t actually want the product, rather the service. In my opinion, every community should have at least a PSS (more like community PSS – sharing clothes, grocery shopping). Especially in Sydney, where there are lots of suburbs, people are friendly, open and economical. It would work out great if the city council was to find some kind of PSS for each suburb. However in places where people do not communicate with their neighbours, a PSS would be hard to implement. But thinking of it, Sydney is becoming more and more like that, where people are too busy with their own things and they become less and less friendly. Or is it because of the difference in culture? In the environment where I live now, neighbours don’t talk to each other, even when they meet in front of apartment doors, or in lifts. If there is some kind of PSS to reduce the gap and bring these ‘anti-socials’ together, I think the PSS would contribute to the overall friendliness and happiness of a person and image of the country even.

From the whole process of designing a PSS, I think the hardest part from this project was to find a problem significant enough to design for. Many problems can just be solved by making either the system or the product. Once you got the problem though, it becomes quite interesting as to what products you need to design and how the system should work. What I like most about this project is that I know after designing this particular PSS, it is possible to implement it straight away, because it’s a real life widespread problem we’re tackling, and most of the time the system includes actors which are already in the cycle (so part of the system is available already).

I think PSS is a very interesting area to work in, so this particular product doesn’t work without the whole system, and vice versa. Everything is interconnected and interdependent. This makes the community closer and makes people realize that they can’t live alone, that you need others to live and you feel thankful that they are around. Even in PSS like sharing clothes, you know that you are benefiting someone else and it raises your pride and happiness level. I realize there are significant human morals and values underlying in every PSS, and I think it is very favourable if design can trigger emotions.

I learned that design is about finding problems, finding gaps where lives could be improved, not just designing another clock, or another phone. May be should design a PSS where people list down all their problems, so there’s a list for designers to work for.. This way it would improve the world at a faster rate.

Video Reflection no.3

The "Age of Stupid" video gave an alarming reminder that global warming is a grave problem, and it can only be solved when everyone works hand in hand, together. I am surprised to know that it's been 50 long years since people know how to convert energy from renewable resources, but they didn't opt for it. If they have started decades ago, we would probably be good in the 'point of stabilization' right now, as Mark Lynas put it, the author of "Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet". But now that we are already heading in that direction, there is a possibility for us to reach that stability point by 2015.

I perceive global warming as a serious issue, however, it seems that I didn't contribute (yet) to making the world a greener and cooler place. In the video, the archivist said that "we pretend global warming didn't happen". I totally don't agree on that. We all know that global warming is the current hot topic everyone's talking about, companies are taking profits of. I think we just don't have a clear picture of how to do it. A step already taken is probably to start this green trend. Next step would be to involve everyone, which is the hardest part. I don't know why some people are actually against wind energy (as shown in the video), the wind turbines looks so nice too! I would not mind and would actually support the idea of using any kind of renewable resources.

However, another significant contribution is our energy consumption. According to the video, flying contributes a large portion to our carbon footprint. But considering globalization, it's just not possible to not use airplanes. Instead, I might suggest a simpler task to do at hand, that we can do everyday. Or may be designers can design 'friendly' aeroplanes that doesn't have as much emissions, so people are catered for, and at the same time, the environment is saved.

Additionally, various media have warned us about global warming; from newspapers to magazines, documentaries to movies. Take "The Day After Tomorrow" as an example. This 2004 movie depicts the catastrophic effects of global warming. Such a clear picture of what MIGHT happen. Disasters everywhere. Which is happening right now. Earthquakes in New Zealand, tsunami in Japan, floods and many more. This made me think of the 2012 prediction, when the world will come to an end..

Designing for Disasters

Rationale


The chosen area was Sichuan 2008 earthquake. This magnitude 8 earthquake killed at least 68,000 people, out of which were more than 5,000 school kids. This happened partly because the earthquake happened at noon when school was still ongoing, but the main reason is because of the poor quality of the school buildings. The schools collapsed instantly and thousands of children were the victims.

Having chosen to focus on the prevention phase of an earthquake, I aim to reduce the number of people injured from using my design, especially school children. Initially I thought, in a school, what can be utilized to prevent them from getting injured? I want to use an existing product, enhance it, and make it more useful.

My design is a whiteboard that doubles as a shelter. In normal situation, the whiteboard would be used as usual, but when an earthquake strikes, it can become a protective shelter for the students so they don’t get injured. The whiteboard slides forward with the help of tracks on the wall and floor and locks to form a void between it and the wall, where students (and teachers) would be able to hide underneath. This idea reinforces the concept of “duck and hide”, but with greater guarantee that they will be safe. A lot of people hide under tables but they still don’t survive. The main challenge to this design was to find a strong structure, enough to handle the weight of the ceiling if it falls down. This is partly resolved by using High Strength Low Alloy steel, which is already used in automotives – it is dent resistant, increased strength-to-weight ratios (so it can be used in thinner sections which means it’s lighter), increased load carrying capability and improved crash energy management. The more important aspect is the shape of the structure. As triangle is the strongest shape and is used in most buildings, I try to include it in my design. At the same time, I also have to consider the ease of getting in and out of the shelter with speed, and the number of people able to be accommodated, as the class size in China is quite big (50 students/class).

Another concerned area was the wall and the floor. It has to be strong enough to withstand the pressure exerted by the steel whiteboard. But according to my research, parents, who mostly lost their only child, were grieving and at the same time angry about the poor school qualities. After years of complaints and dispute with the police and government, they finally agreed to inspect, evaluate and improve the standard of school buildings, that it will meet the agreed building codes. They explained that this improved building standards will not guarantee the schools not collapsing, but it will certainly lessen the damage done. With this information, I take it that the walls and floors/ceilings of the building would not collapse that easily.

Another advantage of this design is that it is able to be implemented anywhere, not only in China. Any buildings that use whiteboards will be advantaged by this product.

 

 

Experiments

Before reaching my finalized shape/structure, I did some experiments in the process to see how people fit and sit, just to get the right shape (not too big, not too cramped), reasonable use of space, how many people can sit inside, etc.

The starting point was to decide what shape - I went back and forth with squares and triangles. With triangles, there was too much waste of space on top of the head, and at the foot. Making the triangle sits lower would reduce the space on top of the head, but still cannot fit extra people. From one of the pictures, it can be seen that I can fit 2 people in a triangle, but considering the different sizes of students (and teachers) I decided to not use a triangle. So I ended up with a combination of both triangle and square - a trapezium. The trapezium is spacious, which fits 2 people easily in a row. Then I need to work out the angle of the trapezium (I tested 110,120,130 degrees) and found out that 110 was the best one.

After that, I made the model-sized whiteboards. Realized the structure doesn't seem strong enough to withstand falling objects, so after some more thinking and research, I found out that triangles are the strongest shape in construction, and is used in most building frameworks. So in the final design, I try to include triangles to make the structure stronger, but still allows people to crawl in and out easily.

Reflection

This project has given us a real-world situation, which we need to ensure its practicality and suitability in the emergency situation. Emergencies are inevitable, and there will be victims. But the challenge is to reduce those numbers. I think this is a really hard project because there are already many things out there designed to be used under such circumstances. This project really helps us to be creative. However, after doing this project, it made me realize that there are a lot of problems still need to be solved with the help of designers, to improve people’s lives.

During the whole process of researching, there is the reluctant to research because every information would include terrifying pictures of the earthquake and it’s really sad to see it, at the same time scared. I even dreamt of me and my family being involved in an earthquake, and I was using my knowledge from my research so far to respond to the situation, example the ‘triangle of life’ concept.

Having done this project, it made me realize how hard design is, when concepts would just be rejected over and over again and the time constraints. If I were to do this project again, which I do not want to, I would definitely use my time better, to research more on the material and make the model better.

Although designing for emergency situations would allow saving people’s lives, it’s not my preferred area of designing. I would prefer things that people would use in their daily lives, more like emotional design. It is more fun, less stress and people are happy. Designing for emergency situation is very stressful, having to research all the time, and considering the access to complete information is not available.


Appearance Model

      

Peer Comments
Fiona Lee
Greg Shar
Julia Xiao Ru Yu
Wawen Chan
Eugenius Lai

Video reflection no.2

I have to admit I do buy bottled water. The reasons? Like what Annie Leonard said in the video "The Story of Bottled Water", I think it has less contaminants, more hygienic and it tastes better. I am convinced bottled water is more hygienic because that's what the companies claim. But one thing I'm always sure of, bottled water tastes BETTER than tap. Tap water has a typical tap water taste, and I'm confident enough that I can differentiate between the two in a taste test. Another reason I drink bottled water is because we Indonesians do not drink from our taps in Indonesia. Tap water in Indonesia is claimed dirty, so we drink from the gallons. Because of this culture, I am hesitant to drink from taps, unless it's filtered. I use Brita at home, but it's not that effective, I can still taste the tap water taste, but I just drink it anyways - yes, I know this is kind of psychological.

I believe that all bottled water - Mount Franklin, Fiji, Pump, Evian, and others, are the same, although sometimes the taste might differ slightly. I wouldn't pay extra dollars for an Evian, unless I'm in a place where it doesn't offer anything else. The decision lies simply on the packaging and brand loyalty. Some brands are just too overpriced, like Evian and Equil. How can water be so expensive? I know pure water is getting harder to find, but other brands don't cost as much! Therefore, I think the factor that makes bottled water so expensive is the bottle.

One aspect of bottled water that I was made aware of a couple of years ago is the bottle itself. It takes so much energy to make it and recycle it. People were encouraged not to use plastic (bags, bottles, etc.). But after that I heard about bottles made from corn, so plastic is degradable and also last week's video reflection about recycling. With all these knowledge and resources we have, wouldn't it be okay to manufacture bottles? Anyways bottles are made with only one material (two with the label) so it's not as complex as electronics.

Business organizations have always concentrate on making lots of profits, they make something new every couple of months. For example, a couple of years ago, Nokia, they offered new phones every 3 months before iPhone and Blackberry came by. Now probably not - they focused more on having quality products that would compare with iPhone and BB. Even apple who claims their products to be environmentally friendly and technologically in front, commits to have a new or improved product every year; and people will buy it for sure. How is this environmentally friendly? And how does this prove the point that their products are good enough to last for years?

As designers it is really important to think about the product's life cycle especially its manufacturing and end of life, although the 'use' phase is the one that contributes most to carbon footprint. Products like disposable cameras are really bad for the environment. I don't understand why cameras have to be disposed of after one time use. It may be cheaper to buy than a real camera, but the environment is paying more for this. And it's this kind of thing that we need to ban in the design industry.

Eco-redesign

We did a group work on disassembling a toaster, taking a look at all the parts and their materials. Put all the information in Greenfly and the toaster's carbon footprint is generated.

Eco-redesign summary here

Video Reflection 1 : Giving Packaging a New Life

Watch video here.

I know that recycling is carried out here in Australia; in residential areas, recreational areas and some shopping malls, different coloured bins are provided for recycling purposes. But I never knew how they recycle and process it back to a new product. No one ever explained, and the products out there don't convince us that they're recycled. Certainly, if they're recycled, the company would be proud of it and they would inform about it on the packaging. I've only seen '5¢ refund for collection in SA'. This certainly encourages the people in SA to recycle. But what about other parts of the world? Why only SA?

One thing I remembered when watching the video - people say plastics cannot be recycled, and they take hundreds of years to decompose. That's why now, they (example, UNSW bookshop) use paper bags "to save the environment" and supermarkets (like Coles and Woolworths) encourage buyers to use cloth bags instead of plastic bags. But since plastics can be recycled, what's so wrong about using plastic bags? And there's still a lot of plastic bottles and products out there...

We all know that our beloved Mother Earth is running out of resources, and recycling is one way to help prevent that. In Germany, recycled paper accounts for 60% in making new paper, recycled steel provides around 40% of the raw material, and probably more than 80% of glass is re-cycled. I say it is extremely possible to increase these numbers to 100%, so new materials are not needed anymore. All other countries should also learn and invest in recycling factories because it's extremely useful and we do need it.

Also, sometimes people are confused about the bins. The bins are usually divided into paper bins and container bins. However, many products are made with more than one material and when people throw it away, they don't want to deal with it anymore. Other times, it's just impossible to tear it apart. A few days ago, I threw a book with steel binds into the paper bin, I also threw cardboard boxes with sticky tapes. This shows that the recycling system is not well thought/planned/designed yet. I know that in the recycling factories, it will be accurately, at lightning speed, sorted out.

But I believe there will be a better way of doing this whole system of recycling, example, an underground tunnel system which automatically sort out every rubbish that we throw and connects it to the factory or incinerator. This way, rubbish is not a problem anymore. In apartments for example, there are recycling bins on every level. So probably they bring the bins down every few days, but there are 20+ levels. So inconvenient, so troublesome. Therefore I strongly believe that there are opportunities for designers, business people and others in this area.