#mienoergaard

Today we had a Skype session with Mie, where we talked about the direction of our thesis. We are currently in the process of selecting a specific context in which we will apply the knowledge we gained through experimenting with leather and shape changing interfaces.

We decided to examine the area of elderly people as a broad context for now and look for interesting subjects within the area. As an additional source of information about the area we will look into papers concerning the subject.

Today we searched for inspiration regarding a specific context for our research on shape change and leather. We stumbled upon madeinthefuture.co where IDEO in collaboration with MIT Media Lab have projected what the future of tomorrow might look like. They describe the following five themes: 

Meaning Economy

Outer Skills

Making Exchanges

Raw Systems

New Matter

We have spend the last week looking into relevant literature and reading Shape Changing Interfaces papers.

Tomorrow we are participating in a second workshop on leather and IT with 8-10 other students + Mie Nørgaard and Lone Koefoed. We spend today specifying our design brief for discussion with Mie and made preparation for the workshop.

This morning we had a 2 hour brainstorm session with Mie Nørgaard and Miguel Bruns. The main take-aways from the session was how we could structure our process. The main points are summarized below.

Research & Inspiration

We need to research and find inspiration on how leather behaves and acts, when it is treated in different ways. Also we need to look into techniques used when working with the material e.g. stitching and filing. Our plan is to use videos and books as inspiration, as well as visiting leather experts and shops. This also connects to the experimentation described in the experiments section.  

Design Brief

We need to focus our design brief further in terms of scale, purpose and direction. Miguel suggested that we got more specific about our focus and didn't keep our scope as wide as we had until know. He suggested that we chose a specific scale from the start to work with.

Experiments

In connection to the research and inspiration, we decided that it would be a good idea to start to get our hands dirty, meaning that we need to start experimenting with leather. We need to start understanding leathers properties and the techniques involved with working with the material and this understanding and experimentation will make ideas emerge of use-cases for leather in shape change.

On Tuesday the 11th of March we have a brainstorming session with our supervisor Mie Nørgaard and Miguel Bruns from the Industrial Design department at Technische Universiteit Eindhoven. The aim of the brainstorming session is to explore the possibilities of working with leather in combination with a shape changing interface.

Our initial thoughts is to work with shape changing interfaces. Today we talked with one of our supervisors, Mie Nørgaard. She mentioned two of her connections that could be interesting to work with, in relation to shape changing interfaces. One of the connections is from a research department within a big IT Company in the US. They could be interested in a concrete application using their technology in a final product. The other connection has a personal design firm that makes leather bags. She is specialised in the craftsmanship of working with leather and have a lot of experience with the material.