Design Studio 02

Creating my first design intervention

The first intervention of the year and it was a great experience for me. We set out by creating our class design space and it was super cool to see how a lot of our interests are intertwined, but also how they differ. We created groups and then set off to explore our interest. My group started by exploring by biomaterials but the made a shift to seeing how we can understand what others feel about waste. An interesting experiment and led to thoughtful conversation.

Design Studio Class: Forming the classes design space

In the design intervention, we did a class exercise to visually represent our design space on the walls. It was a cool experience because the group consisted of individuals with diverse interests and backgrounds. Our class had a large spread of ideas, but the majority was within the interest area "Designing for the Anthropocene". The class really allowed for me to get a better idea of who I might share collective ideas with and also what other classmates were interested in. I feel that it was a good exercise to open you mind to all the areas of the future. I quickly realized that that Oliver, Carmen, Grayson, and Qianyin shared similar interests and we decided to form a group for the next phase of this course.

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Area of the class space I felt most connected to

Week One

This week was super busy finishing machine paradox so we did not spend much time as a group working on the design intervention and the collaborative design space. On Saturday we decided to meet up at IAAC and use materials that we waste on a daily schedule to test out making new materials from waste. We did this as our first experiment as we all were interested in this topic and wanted to get our hands dirty trying things out before going back to our design space and seeing how we can bring our interests together. This was a lot of fun as it required us to all try new things and problem solve along the way. I feel that during this afternoon we started to realize our first idea of a masterclass/talk while making a biomaterial product might 1 take too long and 2 be a bit boring for people that join.

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Bio Experiment 2: Pot from Coffee + Gelatin

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Bio Experiment 1: Paper from Banana

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Collective Design Space

Refocussing Our Design Space

We ended this week by deciding to go back to our design space and spend a bit more time expanding this. On the right you can see our space What this week brought me was that I learned that while I am interested in the materials, my main focus is also creating an environment in which people can learn and change the way they act. As a group we ended the week with the red thread that our intervention should try and shift people perception of waste from trash to something of value in a fun and explorative way.

Week Two

We started this week realizing we wanted something a bit more simple and focussed on what our main goal was, gathering data. So, after talking for a bit a shift was made to gathering intel on the perception of waste and its value in Barcelona. We had seen a post about data being collected through interactive posters and were interested in using this concept to create interactions with people throughout the city. After sending out a quick survey to get our starting point for our intervention it was time to come up with our posters. Wednesday was spent brainstorming and working from home to create a clear plan. We decided to go to 2 different places so that we could compare the results afterwards. To start we hung up 1 set of posters in the hallway at IAAC, hoping to reach designers and internationals to see what they felt. Next, we headed to Gracia, a neighbourhood known for being sustainable and conscious. Here we walked around the squares, talked to various groups of people and were able to get interesting results. 

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Creating Our Intervention

To build our intervention we created three different posters. Each had a statement to chose from and then a question to be answered. In this way we could gather data on various issues that we found pressing. After making our posters in Adobe, we printed them and reinforced them with cardboard so that they would be sturdy for when we took them into the city. It was an interesting thing to consider what the core questions were we wanted answers to but the followed.

The Posters

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What do people consider waste and what have people repurposed?
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Are people willing to change their habits and who do they feel holds the responsibility of waste management? + What is holding people back from changing and do they understand the current recycling processes in BCN?

Intervention 1

Exploring how different groups think about waste, waste management and our future. Taking our posters out into the city and connecting with others.

Comparing IAAC to Gracia

I feel that the two experiments we did were both great and received a lot of information. I do think that by going to Gracia we were able to talk to more people and this led to insights that I had not considered before. Things like how at the moment policies are holding them back from making a change or how people feel that mobility factors into the choices they make that make them less sustainable. For me these conversations were the most valuable part of the intervention as they gave a fresh perspective to the problem. In the future would love to connect with even more people

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Design Studio 02 Reflection

The design intervention project has been an exciting and collaborative experience for our group. We started by visually representing our design space and quickly formed a group with shared interests. The diverse perspectives among us led to fruitful discussions and exploration of various possibilities for our intervention.

In the first week, we were busy with other projects but still found time to experiment with creating new materials from waste. We realized that our initial idea of a masterclass/talk might not be engaging enough, so we shifted our focus towards changing people's perception of waste through a fun and explorative approach. It was a fun week to try out new things, however it the end it was not fit for what we hoped to get out of this intervention. 

During the second week, we brainstormed and decided to gather intel on the perception of waste and its value in Barcelona. Using interactive posters and conducting a survey, we engaged with people in different locations, including IAAC and the sustainable neighborhood of Gracia.

Overall, this project has been a valuable learning experience for me. I learned that while I find biomaterials interesting, I do not yet have the knowledge to use them in the way I hope. Furthermore, this intervention taught me that if I want to make an impact on the waste we create as a society, I can also focus on the community and find solutions that tackle it from the beginning and not only using the waste afterwards. Both areas are still of interest for me and I hope to go into both in a bit more detail before focussing on one area. I decided to go back to my personal design space and update it with the knowledge gained over the past weeks. 

View Updated Design Space

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