TICTaD
Teaching Interdisciplinary and Collaborative Thinking about Design
About TICTaD:
TICTaD is a part of EUREGIO, an initiative by three universities (University of Trento, Free University of Bolzano, and University of Innsbruck) to facilitate collaboration and teaching excellence amongst them.
TICTaD is a series of three full-day workshops for the students of the three universities, which aims at helping students develop an interdisciplinary and collaborative perspective on the design of functional artifacts.
Each workshop will be in a different university and will feature two speakers with extensive experience in design and collaboration.
The first part of workshop may be open to the public and features speakers presenting their experience of collaborative design and engaging in a round table discussion with a moderator (one of TICTaD organizers).
The second part of workshop is only open to the selected students and will have students working in groups on a design issue, interact with other groups, and present groupwork to the speakers and moderator.
Throughout the workshop, the students are guided to reflect on the design practices through the lenses of social research and on benefits of cross-discipline collaboration.
Theme, Time and Place:
Bolzano
Topic: Food, Communities & Design
When: Nov 16th, 2016
Where: Faculty of Design and Art of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano
Room F0.01 Free University of Bozen, Piazza Univesità/at Platz 1, 39100 Bozen
Contact person: Dr. Alvise Mattozzi
Innsbruck
Topic: Landscape & Design
When: Nov 23rd, 2016
Where: Institute of Design, University of Innsbruck
The groundfloor of the architectute building (Architektur-Foyer), Technikerstraße 21 (Campus Technik), 6020 Innsbruck, Austria
Contact person: prof. Andreas Flora
Trento
Topic: Dyslexia & Design
When: Dec 7th, 2016
Where: Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science, University of Trento
Room 'Ofek', top floor of Povo1 building, via Sommarive 9, 38123 Povo, Italy
Contact person: Dr. Aliaksei Miniukovich
NOTE: the additional seminar (Jun 8th, 2016, Trento) about Design Thesis Writing is detailed in this document.
Schedule:
Only Bz: 09:15 - 09:30 presentation of TiCDAC project
Only Bz: 09:30 - 10:30 community building: pre-workshop
10:30 - 11:00 presentation, 1st speaker
11:00 - 11:30 presentation, 2nd speaker
11:30 - 12:00 round table with both speakers and moderation.
12.00 - 13:00 lunch
13:00 - 13:30 groupwork intro + group formation
13:30 - 15:30 groupwork
15.30 - 16:00 coffee break
16.00 - 17:00 result presentation and discussion
17.00 - the end
Speakers
Bolzano
Henriëtte Waal - social designer
Henriette Waal is a social designer. She graduated as a designer of public space (Design Academy Eindhoven) and interior designer (MIA Sandberg Institute) with a focus on temporary use of vacant property. Since 2013 she teaches at the Master in Social Design of the Design Academy Eindhoven. Her work ranges from design research to spatial interventions, product design, photography and video, and embarking on the intersection of art, design and critical anthropology. Projects are centered around complex social social issues, our relationship with the landscape, the time and each other. From intensive fieldwork on site Waal gives form from within, based on a specific context and its users. One of her most know projects is The Outdoor Brewery.
You can read more about Henriette's food projects and art projects, or watch an interview with Henriette on Youtube.
Dr. Alvise Mattozzi - sociologist
Alvise Mattozzi, works at the cross-road of Science and Technology Studies and Design Studies using semiotics as a descriptive methodology in order to account for the social role of artifacts.
Since 2011, he is RTD Researcher in Sociology of Culture and Communication at the Faculty of Design and Art of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano. He has contributed to design and establish the Master in Eco-Social Design of the Faculty of Design and Art of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano. Together with his colleague Tiziana Piccioni, he is currently writing a book about the unnoticed innovation brought about by Italian raw milk vending machines.
Innsbruck
Hilmar Gamper - DJ and Artist
Gamper about his "phantastic city-project“:
"Since starting to draw my first city 35 years ago 20 phantastic city-maps have seen the light of the days in the 20th and 21st century. My inspiration comes as well from science fiction literature as from many other influences such as travelling. Thus a genuine and complex Fantasy/Science Fiction universe was created in my mind, partially translated and expressed in my „cities“ city-maps and land-maps. Originally never meant to be published exactly this circumstance let me work without compromises, be it regarding a potential audience, be it regarding reality itself.
„Constructing“ my cities takes years, exactly like real ones they permanently grow and change: This is why the presented cities can only be snap-shots in a continuous process."
You can watch Hilmar performing or read an interview with Hilmar.
Danny Wills - architect and researcher
Danny Wills is a graduate of the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union where his thesis was awarded the Henry Adams AIA Medal and Certificate of Merit, as well as the Yarnell Thesis Prize in Architecture, both honors given to the top-ranking student. His work investigates rural and urban issues through ecological systems thinking in regards to food, landscape, and water. A large part of his interest comes from riding his bike, on which he has logged over 8000km through 10 different countries.
His work has been published in Wallpaper* Magazine, CLOG, trans magazin, Urban Infill, Citizen K Magazine, and The Drawing Center’s Drawing Papers Series, as well as several online sources including Domus, BLDGBLOG and ArchDaily.
He has worked for Storefront for Art and Architecture, Lyn Rice Architect, the Institute for Sustainable Design, and the Architecture Archive at The Cooper Union, all focused on the development of exhibitions, including research, design, production and fabrication.
Currently he is a researcher and design studio critic at the Chair of Architecture and Urban Design in the ETH Zürich Department of Architecture, and a project architect with Urban-Think Tank, an interdisciplinary architecture and urban design practice. He has also worked as a teaching assistant at The Cooper Union, lecturing on the topics of landscape and sustainability.
Trento
Jim Rokos - industrial designer
Designer Jim Rokos has built a brand of playful and surprising home décor.
The products express their personalities. They can take on the mood of the users (13° 60° 104° decanter), they can take on the behaviour of the objects contained (GAUGE flower vase), they can be shy or extrovert while performing their job (22° 36° 48° bowl).
He introduces his works and explains how his career lead to this.
This year Jim curated the very first Dyslexic Design exhibition, which was designed by Ab Rogers and hosted by designjunction. Dyslexic Design challenged perceptions of dyslexia. He walks us through the exhibition, which celebrates dyslexia's many benefits including the connection between dyslexia and creativity while accentuating its positive impact. The exhibition showcased dyslexic designers' works across several disciplines including product, fashion, illustration, architecture, home decor and fine art. Dyslexic designers' works are enriched with the unexpected, only made possible by the lateral thinking of a dyslexic mind. For several of these leading designers, this was the first time they publicly declared themselves as dyslexic. Many of the works also demonstrate unusual three-dimensional thinking.
Jim won the prestigious 2012 Reddot Design award for the 13° 60° 104° Wine Decanter and the Enterprise Europe Network Award 2014 for the Gauge vase. The vase has also just won the German Design Award 2017, for Excellent Product Design. His innovative cat-food bowl won BBC’s Tomorrow’s World's Best Inventions pilot in 2001. His Blindspot series is Design Parade selected (2007). In 2008, he won an RSA Design Directions award.
Originally he trained as a model-maker in the film and television industry (working on The Muppet Treasure Island, Band of Brothers, Tomb Raider, Victoria and Albert). Jim then went on to teach at a special needs school in London before completing a Master’s degree (2006) in Industrial Design at Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design (part of London’s University of the Arts).
Many now consider Jim's work to be a symbol of the gifts that dyslexia can bring.
Working from his studio in London, Jim is passionate to explore materials to create original and visually beautiful, refined concepts. He enjoys every stage of the design process.
Maria Menendez Blanco - public design scientist
Maria holds a MSc in Computer Engineering by the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and a PDEng in User System Interaction by the University of Eindhoven. Maria has professional experience as HCI researcher and currently she is pursuing a PhD in Methods for Public Design.
Maria is interested in participatory approaches to design, how they can enact the articulation of collective matters of concern and support or facilitate the creation of publics.
Groupwork (Info for students):
During the group work, students would be asked to follow a critical design approach to create interactive technologies for their university campus. In particular, they would be asked to think about something that it is problematic at the university campus (e.g. they have no voice in the canteen menu, professors’ assessment is private) and propose an alternative narrative that can be translated into a physical or digital interactive technology (e.g. mobile app that allows students to participatorily design the canteen menu, token at the exit of the classroom which allows entering and visualizing professor’s assessment). Students will be asked to create a low fidelity prototype of these artefacts. They can use paper prototypes, mock-ups (e.g. balsamiq mock-ups), physical prototypes created with foam, cardboard.
Summarising, the expected steps are: identify an existing problematic discourse, propose of an alternative narrative, create of a low fidelity prototype aligned with this alternative narrative, present the prototype elaborating on the design process.