Tag: Studio

The Wall

Thursday December 02 09:48

This is an interesting paper called The WALL: participatory design workspace in support of creativity, collaboration, and socialization written about workspaces using various techniques to support creativity, collaboration and “socialization.” The paper describes and advanced design studio for a “Nordic EU” country and the use of a wall — in this case, a real wall, not a video wall or something like this — and the ways in which design work forms on, in and around the wall. This is interesting to me because of the direct opposite of typical assumptions from the world of technology where high-tech is often used — video conferencing systems, telepresence devices, and so on. In this particular studio, the wall becomes a place where work happens. Things that go up on the wall become projects or intersect or leak-into other projects.

The challenge in this particular study (two or three days of observation) is that the studio has a sibling that is a great distance away so the team is separated by space as well as a significant time difference. THe challenges in this case are to share the wall in some fashion — which is not entirely solved. Various approaches are tried — sending high resolution photographs, creating large format plotter-prints to create a facsimile of the wall from one studio to the other, etc. Some video conferencing can happen, but even this is only effective at communicating verbally because the persistence of shared images, sketches and so on is low — it is only around for the call. The bulk of the design activities happen with people together, in the same physical space, standing/sitting/couching/laughing at and near the wall. Casual encounters while walking by a team working on a specific bit of material at the wall can inflect and inform the work in substantial ways — even by members of the design team not directly assigned to a specific project. In fact, it sounds like every member of the team is working on every project to one extent or another by virtue of the fact that the projects wrap around the studio on the wall. Walking by representations of a project can spark an insight or ideas for other projects. Material from one stream of work can find its way into another quite naturally as the boundaries of ownership, share-ability, and so on are made permeable in a creative, productive way by the maturity of the team, the transparency the wall facilitates (everything is there), the rather flat-ish structure of the design team, and the implicit trust amongst the team (no one needs to be policed or watched; attendance isn’t taken, &c.)

Why do I blog this? I’m very interested in what makes creative, productive, advanced design/technology teams work well. This idea of the analog wall — a pin-up wall — is simple, does not need to be plugged-in, allows for sharing and viewing and collaborating.
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Weeksendings 07302010 and 08062010

Friday July 23 12:01

Sketching in Hardware 2010

I can sum the last two weeks up briefly and, again — for my own record keeping. Nothing useful here, likely at all.

The week that ended on 08062010 had a couple of days off during which time I stayed here in LA and the super fun opportunity to photograph the X Games, ESPN’s blitz of extremely nutso sports.

The weekend before was the ThingM produced “Sketching in Hardware” event for 2010. It was held appropriately at the retro-future “Encounter” restaurant smack-dab in the middle of LAX. I presented a brief and generalized thoughts on the Design Fiction business. In the midst of it, I realized that this was an appropriate continuation of the previous three presentations at Sketching I had done. There was this theme of how making things is a way of answering questions, but pushing those questions beyond the pragmatic sort of prototyping — asking “wouldn’t it be cool if..?” and then answering that question by making something. I think this is a different approach from the more engineering-style prototyping which asks “I wonder if this put together with these other things will work?” The difference I was thinking about is that the former is closer to story, whereas the latter is more instrumental and less speculative. Or something.

I spent the weekend *trying to finish the 5000 words I was asked to put together for a keynote at this Swiss Design Network conference this fall. I think it sounds repetitive. I’m trying to find a way to write about design fiction genre conventions or, as Tim Dufree put it during the opening ceremonies for the Art Center’s “Made Up” summer studios “the lanugage of design fiction.”

Enterprise from Foam

Found during the studio pack-up! I think Andrew made this to test the new CNC tool-pathing procedures that were made infinitely easier with the Nikolaj’s hard work.

We packed up the studio so all our *stuff that had been hiding and unnecessarily accumulating so it could be moved aside for new furniture which was generally grumbled about before it even was installed for a variety of reasons, mostly having to do with the inertia that settles around what you think is best for you because it’s already there and works fine. I straddled the line and, if I’m honest with myself, used the opportunity to grumble only because I felt grumbly. Now that the new stuff has been in for a week, it’s an awesomely refreshing change. No over head storage (grumble..sour looks..) means more light (aaaaAAAAH..unicorn-y twinkle noises..) and I can actually see across the entire studio (hip-hip-hooray! my other studio mates!).

Last week was mostly a week of trying to design UIs back and forth from UI principles. It’s hard work, as in bailing hay hard work and by that I mean I feel this delicate balance between knowing what’s right and hearing in my head the voices of people who might be, like..that? It’s all wrong. Where’s the Augmented Reality Door Knob we’re meant to have attached to the side?

*shrug*

I looked over the original Drift Deck notes and spreadsheets — I need, need, need to write up another 20 or so cards to bring the deck for the digital edition up to 52. No big deal — it just needs to get done.

I got some new Laboratory work gear to make for some of our associates for putting in work on the Laboratory’s projects.

The Choreographed City - Mona Breede

Wonderful book of photography by Mona Breede, also found (never lost, just made apparent from beneath the overwhelming piles of stuff and shelves of books.)

Why do I blog this? I missed the week before, so I’m catching up. And I find it extraordinarily useful to have this running log of what I’ve been doing, when and with whom.
Continue reading Weeksendings 07302010 and 08062010

Design Fiction Studio for Young Minds

Friday July 23 18:16

The Innovation Center for Young Minds as an enviable-sounding studio for Fall 2010:

In “Design Fiction Studio,” we will focus on experimental ways to combine science fiction story telling with new forms of media production. The students will be asked to write a short science-fiction story and expected to illustrate it in an experimental book. We will explore ways to combine alternative materials –such as very basic electronic elements, conductive inks, phase- and color-changing materials– with new kinds of fabrication and production techniques to learn both about the materials and the way they can be used in different kinds of fictional products.

Topics to be covered:
– Basic science fiction writing skills to develop a short story or concept that will address a problem we may have in the near future.
– Experiment with new kinds of smart materials, design and interaction techniques to build an interactive book to illustrate the story.
– Discuss how writing fiction and building fictional objects can contribute to our thinking and allow us to bring into attention problems before they may even emerge.

Why do I blog this?Curious to see the ways science-fiction is used in design to think, write and make speculative new stuff. And I’m looking for good examples of design-fiction beyond the theory and principles behind it. Also — this is one of the first times I’ve seen the design-fiction stuff connected so directly to science-fiction writing — I mean, besides those folks who are already science-fiction writers. The idea that basic science fiction writing skills are taught as well as the gooey, arduino-y making-of-things.
Continue reading Design Fiction Studio for Young Minds