The thesis aims to observe the industrial design profession and to study the role of industrial designer in Turkish industry. Through an electronic questionnaire investigating the manufacturers&rsquo / and designers&rsquo / opinions about how industrial design practice is perceived and how industrial designers are utilized in Turkey it was possible to examine the current roles of industrial designers and to evaluate the status of industrial design profession. The survey also investigated how the industrial designer or the design team is situated in new product development process, and in the corporate hierarchy, what kind of investments have been made in the last decades by manufacturers in Turkey on industrial design.

Transformable products (or transformers), those with two or more functional states, are increasingly utilized by our society. As the mobility and complexity of life increases, so must the adaptability of the products which we use. We need new design techniques to develop more adaptable devices, such as transformers. The purpose of this study is to propose a response to the question “When is it preferable to implement a design approach focused on developing transformable products over an approach focused on developing primary function, non transforming products?” Our response to this question comes in the form of a method. The method helps a designer or design team consider the benefits of developing a transformer at an early stage in the design process. Research includes a deductive and an inductive study which are used to identify transformation indicators or context properties and usage factors that identify when it is preferable to build a transformable device. Static function-state indicators are also presented. These are contrary to transformation indicators in that they identify contexts suitable for developing non-transforming devices. Our technique seeks to improve the outcome of a design project by encouraging the consideration of transformable solutions and aiding in the selection of an appropriate design process. This method for testing the presence of these indicators in exemplary design contexts is presented. One such application is the design of an autonomous bridge-health monitoring system. / text

This research explores the scope of waste as a material and methods for fashion design, drawing together an open mindset and sustainable actions for a menswear collection. Reflective Design Practice is the overlaying methodology used to incorporate a wide variety of textile manipulations and materials. The research approach is to source waste materials, with a focus on virgin yarns for knitwear, exploring and identifying the possibilities for individual elements and analyzing through a photographic lineup, repeating for further development. This emergency, as well as a focus on perfect solutions from the offset, can be a barrier for experimentation. Therefore a change in posture and mindset is necessary. For this thesis, posture, motive, and aesthetic design decisions are embodied in a persona - This persona, delicate, yet rough and in a hurry, as with sustainability, are combined into the Lazy Romantic. Speculatively this research has the potential to open up for landfills as material sourcing for fashion design or landfills being unnecessary as the word waste is no longer defining the material.

Formulated as a feminist project, written as a pulp fiction, Architectural Flirtations: A Love Storey begins with our claim that the architectural discipline is centered around a culture of critique, which is based in what bell hooks calls “a system of imperialist, white supremacist, heterosexist, capitalist, patriarchy,” and that the values instilled by this culture not only begin with, but are reinforced and reproduced by, the education of young architects. Sounds serious. Right? In a move toward a more vulnerable, ethical and empowering culture of architecture, the project aims to displace the culture of critique, by questioning and undermining relationships of power and privilege through practices that are explicitly critical, queer feminist, and Campy. In other words, it takes seriously, in an uncertain, improper and playful way, what is usually deemed unserious within the architectural discipline, in order to undermine the usual order of things. All of the (love) storeys take place on March 21st, the spring equinox, in and around a 1977 collaborative row house project called Case Unifamiliari in Mozzo, Italy, designed by Aldo Rossi and Attilio Pizzigoni. Beda Ring, PhD researcher, constructs a Campy renovation of one of these row houses, full of theatricality, humor, and significant otherness; while architectural pedagogue, Brady Burroughs, guides a student group from KTH in an Architecture and Gender course; and Henri T. Beall, practicing architect, attends to the details upstairs. / <p>QC 20161025</p>

Made available in DSpace on 2016-12-12T20:17:56Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 119040.pdf: 15039381 bytes, checksum: 3b2f8b83fee7c0e69dc7bcc1aa1a41ed (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-07-22 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The present study begins in the projecting issue, addressing concepts of knowledge building, specifically about projects related to communication interfaces. The starting point and motivation of the study lies in the perception of a frequent gap between audience, interface building theory and design practice. It is suggested that modern projective practices must break with the static paradigms from the past, joining new forms and practices, suggesting content curation in the world wide web. Raising points of convergence between: web content curating, interface design and "design design" (the metaproject) in creating up to date projecting practices, the work raises a discussion proposing the application of the possibilities that the so-called "new economy" brings to the intense routine of referencing that nowadays constitutes the designer praxis. Thus, the theoretical framework focuses on cognitive ergonomics in design practice, the meta-project, the communication design, semiotics, curating content and finally branding. / A presente dissertação se inicia na questão da problemática projetual, abordando conceitos sobre a construção do conhecimento, especificamente, dos projetos de interfaces comunicacionais. O ponto de partida e motivação do trabalho é a percepção de que ainda é frequente o distanciamento entre público-alvo, teoria da construção de interfaces e a prática projetual. Sugere-se que as práticas projetuais modernas devem romper com os paradigmas estáticos do passado, aderindo novas formas e práticas, como, por exemplo, a curadoria de conteúdo na rede mundial de computadores. Levantando pontos da convergência entre: curadoria de conteúdo web, design de interfaces e design do design (o metapojeto) na criação de práticas projetuais atualizadas, o trabalho suscita uma discussão propondo a aplicação das possibilidades que a chamada nova economia traz ao cotidiano de intenso referenciamento, que hoje, constitui o projetar do designer. Deste modo, o referencial teórico concentra-se na ergonomia cognitiva, na prática projetual, no metaprojeto, no design da comunicação, na semiótica, na curadoria e por último em branding.

Design idea generation is a significant part of the designer’s work and most frequently associated with creative problem-solving. However, an outstanding challenge in design is translating empirical findings or other inspirational sources into ideas or knowledge that inform design, also known as generating implications for design. Though great efforts have been made to bridge this gap, there is still no overall consensus on how to appropriately incorporate research data and external sources into the design ideas generation process. Besides, design ideas generation is a process that is rooted in personal knowledge. It is often considered a precedent-based type of reasoning where knowledge is continuously transformed to frame new insights and this creative leap across the divide is perceived to be difficult, especially for novice and student designers. Based on the grounded theory, the author conducted open-ended, semi-structured qualitative interviews with eighteen designers, including design professors, practitioners and students to learn about the knowledge on how the contemporary designers select inspirational sources and transform them into ideas with appropriate methods in different contexts, the design mindset involved during the iterative and generative ideation process, and the criteria of evaluating design ideas. The results indicated seven commonly used categories of sources: ‘personal,’ ‘daily stuff,’ ’media,’ ‘technology,’ ‘knowledge of other disciplines,’ ‘fieldwork’ and ‘design practice.’ The methods could be allocated to three stages: investigation, analysis and synthesis. In each specific phase, designers applied different methods to cope with various sources for various purposes, depending on different situations. A general framework was built for designers to conduct a proper selection of sources and methods to transform them into the knowledge that informs design. The study emphasized the flow of inspirational sources, the relationship between sources and methods, and the transformation procedures which tried to help the designer get more scientific structure and give design students more practical guidance in idea generation. The comparison was continuously made within the matrix structure on the matter of sources and methods selection, the role of design research and ideation process among different groups of designers in academics and practice, which revealed the knowledge and skills missed or ignored in university education and challenges in the design project development. The implications for design education were discussed, such as the development of design students’ competence, especially the skills that should be learned in a new digital society to help design education refine idea generation methods and improve corresponding techniques to discover a dynamic balance between theory and practice. / Das Hervorbringen von Designideen ist ein wichtiger Teil der Arbeit eines Designers und wird meistens mit kreativer Problemlösung assoziiert. Eine besondere Herausforderung ist dabei die mentale Verarbeitung von Informationen und Inspirationsquellen und deren Umsetzung zu Gestaltungsentwürfe. Dieser kreative Prozess wird vor allem von Anfängern und Designstudenten als schwierig wahrgenommen. Trotz vielfältiger Forschungsanstrengungen gibt es noch immer keinen allgemeinen Konsens dazu, auf welche Weise Informationen in den Designprozess einbezogen werden und wie sich diese präzedenzbasierte Art des Denkens vermitteln lässt. Da dieser Prozess stark auf Erfahrung basiert, wird er oft als Präzedenz-basierte Art des Denkens betrachtet, bei welcher Wissen fortwährend in neue Erkenntnisse umgeformt wird. Dieser kreative Akt wird vor allem von Anfängern als schwierig wahrgenommen. Dem Paradigma der 'grounded theory' folgend hat die Autorin ergebnisoffene, teilstrukturierte und qualitative Interviews mit Designern durchgeführt. Interviewt wurden Designprofessoren, Praktiker und Studenten, um zu erfahren, wie zeitgenössische Designer Inspirationsquellen recherchieren und mit welchen Methoden sie diese in unterschiedlichen Kontexten zu Ideen umwandeln. Weiterhin werden die Vorgehensweise der Designer während des Gestaltungsprozesses und die Evaluationskriterien der Designideen untersucht. Anhand der Untersuchungsergebnisse lassen sich sieben Informationskategorien unterscheiden: Persönliches, alltägliches, mediales, technologisches Wissen sowie Wissen aus anderen Fachbereichen, aus Feldforschung und aus der Designpraxis. Diese Methoden finden im Designprozess innerhalb von drei Phasen Anwendung: Untersuchung, Analyse und Synthese. In jeder dieser Phase wenden Designer dabei verschiedene Methoden an, um Informationsquellen aufzubereiten und in den Designprozess einzubeziehen. Ausgehend von einem Prozessmodell untersuchte die durchgeführte Studie insbesondere die Einbeziehung von Inspirationsquellen, die Beziehung zwischen Quellen und Methoden und die mentalen Verarbeitungsprozeduren. Mit den erzielten Ergebnissen unterstützt die Untersuchung die Designforschung und gibt Designstudenten eine fundierte Anleitung für die Entwicklung von Ideen. Ein besonderer Fokus der Studie lag auf dem Vergleich von verschiedenen Gruppen von Designern – insbesondere auch mit Blick auf den Unterschied zwischen tären Ausbildung vermittelten Kompetenzen mit den praktischen Anforderungen korrespondieren. Darauf aufbauend diskutiert diese Arbeit Empfehlungen für die Designausbildung, z.B. hinsichtlich des Kontexts der digitalen Gesellschaft oder der Verfeinerung von Methoden der Ideengenerierung. Damit soll die Arbeit dazu beitragen, die Designausbildung zu verbessern und ein dynamisches Gleichgewicht zwischen Theorie und Praxis zu ermöglichen.

[pt] A possibilidade de aproximação entre a prática da arte e a prática do design decorre do fato de que todas as ações do Homem relativas ao seu entorno natural ou aos demais seres humanos são formas de trabalho, ou práticas sociais. Assim, compartilham semelhanças. Desde o Renascimento, certos artefatos ganharam uma aura de superioridade em relação aos demais artigos manufaturados. Nascia o conceito de arte e neste contexto emergiria a figura do artista. O Humanismo transfigurou os habitus do período. A utilização da técnica do desenho, etapa intelectual prévia à materialização da produção artística ou criativa, serviu como pedra angular para justificar a diferenciação entre artesanato e arte. Seguiu-se a institucionalização do ensino da teoria do desenho pelas Academias de Arte e a concomitante legitimação da maior hierarquia da atividade intelectual comparada à manual. Aos poucos, tais instituições, inicialmente criadas para libertar o artista das guildas medievais, as superaram em restrições, regulamentando em pormenores a atividade da arte e julgando a boa e a má prática criativa. O desgaste e a revolta da classe artística conduziram ao enfraquecimento ou mesmo ao ocaso das referidas Academias, a partir do século XVIII. A compreensão das transformações do contexto sócio-econômico é essencial para a análise das mudanças na produção criativa. A passagem para uma economia monetária e urbana foi determinante para o início da Idade Moderna ocidental e mercantilista. A seguir, a Revolução Industrial principiada na GrãBretanha setecentista foi o motor para a implementação do sistema capitalista de produção em massa, que introduziu um novo padrão de consumo. Neste contexto, os empresários da indústria convidaram os artistas para trabalhar em parceria, a fim de tornar a forma e a aparência dos produtos industriais mais atrativas comercialmente. Escolas de artes e ofícios foram criadas a partir do século XIX, na Europa, e formavam profissionais criativos para o trabalho na indústria. A fusão que se deu entre escolas de belas artes e escolas de artes e ofícios, na Saxônia e em Moscou, deu origem a Bauhaus e Vkhutemas, respectivamente. Tais instituições do século XX legitimaram a noção construída da autonomia da prática hoje chamada design em relação à prática da arte. O design emergiu como um suposto novo Campo de conhecimento. A afirmação de que a prática do design é herdeira da prática da arte se confirma: pelo passado em comum que compartilham e pela similitude dos caminhos de luta percorridos em busca de autonomia. Posto também que a prática do design ainda não logrou êxito em definir seu objeto e seus princípios, o Design poderia ser percebido como uma espécie, atividade integrante de um gênero mais amplo, o Campo da Arte. A asserção expressa não reivindica para si qualquer sorte de infalibilidade, antes deseja servir como uma hipótese de trabalho a ser considerada no esforço de se pensar a ontologia e a epistemologia do Design. Bibliografia crítica e oficial sobre o tema informou a presente pesquisa. / [en] The possibility of a semblance between art and design practices stems from the fact that all human interactions with their natural surroundings or with other human beings are forms of work or social practices. Therefore, they do have similarities. Since the Renaissance, some artifacts have gained an aura of superiority over other manufactured articles. The concept of art was born, and within this context the figure of the artist emerged. Humanism transformed the habits of the period. The use of pre-project drawings as the intellectual stage for art, prior to the materialization of artistic or creative production, served as the cornerstone to justify the differentiation between craft and art. This was followed by the institutionalization of the teaching of drawing theory by the Academies of Art and the concurrent legitimization of the higher hierarchy of intellectual activity compared to manual work. Gradually, these institutions which were initially created to free the artist from the medieval guilds, surpassed them in restrictions by regulating in detail Art and judging the good and the bad creative practice. The wear and tear of the artistic class led to the weakening or even to the demise of the said Academies starting from the eighteenth century. Understanding the transformations of the socioeconomic context is essential for the analysis of the changes in creative production. The transition to a monetary and urban economy was decisive for the early modern Western and mercantilist age. Then, the Industrial Revolution began in Britain in the 18th century as the engine for the implementation of the capitalist system of mass production, which introduced a new consumption pattern. In this context, industrial entrepreneurs invited artists to work in partnership to make the shape and appearance of industrial products more commercially attractive. Schools of arts and crafts were created during the nineteenth century in Europe to train creative professionals to work in the industry. The merger between fine arts schools and arts and crafts schools, in Saxony and Moscow, gave rise to Bauhaus and Vkhutemas, respectively. These twentieth century institutions legitimized the notion of the autonomy of what is called design today in relation to the practice of art. Design emerged as a supposedly new field of knowledge. The statement that the practice of design is heir to the practice of art is confirmed: by the common past they share and by the similarity of their struggle to search for autonomy. Additionaly, since the practice of design has not yet succeeded in defining its objectives and its principles, Design can be perceived as a species, part of a broader genus, the Field of Art. This statement is not immune to constructive criticism, but aims to serve as a working hypothesis to be considered in the effort to think about the ontology and epistemology of Design. Critical and official bibliography on the subject informed the present research.

The need for humanity to lessen its impact on the ecologies we’re a part of is becoming increasingly clear.  While there are many technically advanced solutions in the makings, one of the most straightforward ones is to simply use the objects we surround ourselves with longer. We can make them more durable and repairable but what happens when the needs of the user changes? How can we really know what needs the future will bring? I’m searching for a design approach that embraces this unknown. A process where the designer doesn’t have to be the enlightened figure that knows everything in advance. Because if we accept the complexity of the social and ecological reality where our objects end up, we never can be. I want to make objects that can grow and change with the user. A fertile soil for future needs. I’ve used the design process of three different objects to develop these thoughts.  An open ended loom for the weaver Vega Määttä Siltberg, a table made with designer Julie Amira that is disassemblable without tools, and lastly a piece of furniture that changes function without moving parts. The goal of this project is not to produce a solution to a specific problem or to create an object that communicates an idea as well as possible. Rather it’s the reverse. By the process of designing and building I’ve been able to explore the questions that my project is composed of. The thoughts expressed here come from this experience.

Personal space is a human’s imaginary system of precaution and an important concept for exploring territoriality, but between humans and technology because machinic agencies transfer, relocate, enact and reenact territorially. Literatures of territoriality, violence and affect are uniquely brought together, with chatbots as the research object to argue that their ongoing development as artificial agents, and the ambiguity of violence they can engender, have broader ramifications for a socio-technical research programme. These literatures help to understand the interrelation of virtual and actual spatiality relevant to research involving chatrooms and internet forums, automated systems and processes, as well as human and machine agencies; because all of these spaces, methods and agencies involve the personal sphere. The thesis is an ethical tale of cruel techno-science that is performed through conceptualisations from the creative arts, constituting a PhD by practice. This thesis chronicles four chatbots, taking into account interventions made in fine art, design, fiction and film that are omitted from a history of agent technology. The thesis re-interprets Edward Hall’s work on proxemics, personal space and territoriality, using techniques of the bricoleur and rudiments (an undeveloped and speculative method of practice), to understand chatbot techniques such as the pick-up, their entrapment logics, their repetitions of hateful speech, their nonsense talk (including how they disorientate spatial metaphors), as well as how developers switch on and off their learning functionality. Semi-structured interviews and online forum postings with chatbot developers were used to expand and reflect on the rudimentary method. To urge that this project is timely is itself a statement of anxiety. Chatbots can manipulate, exceed, and exhaust a human understanding of both space and time. Violence between humans and machines in online and offline spaces is explored as an interweaving of agency and spatiality. A series of rudiments were used to probe empirical experiments such as the Prisoner’s Dilemma (Tucker, 1950). The spatial metaphors of confinement as a parable of entrapment, are revealed within that logic and that of chatbots. The ‘Obedience to Authority’ experiments (Milgram, 1961) were used to reflect on the roles played by machines which are then reflected into a discussion of chatbots and the experiments done in and around them. The agency of the experimenter was revealed in the machine as evidenced with chatbots which has ethical ramifications. The argument of personal space is widened to include the ways machinic territoriality and its violence impacts on our ways of living together both in the private spheres of our computers and homes, as well as in state-regulated conditions (Directive-3, 2003). The misanthropic aspects of chatbot design are reflected through the methodology of designing out of fear. I argue that personal spaces create misanthropic design imperatives, methods and ways of living. Furthermore, the technological agencies of personal spaces have a confining impact on the transient spaces of the non-places in a wider discussion of the lift, chatroom and car. The violent origins of the chatbot are linked to various imaginings of impending disaster through visualisations, supported by case studies in fiction to look at the resonance of how anxiety transformed into terror when considering the affects of violence.

This thesis specifically focuses on the professional practices and training of Western industrial designers using postcolonial theory to inform working practices in a complex global ecology. It investigates the culturally hegemonic construction of design solutions in man-made products. By adopting key ideas from postcolonial and cultural studies as a lens to evaluate fields of industrial design discourse, practice and pedagogy, the work proceeds from the premise that design is not intrinsic to a product but the result of a myriad different forces and factors acting on it externally including hegemonic potencies. By reinterpreting technological formations in light of research emerging from post-colonial studies, it attempts to broaden our intellectual understanding of how product design in theory, practice and education can often rely upon western [hegemonic] aesthetic and deep cultural archetypes. The purpose of this enquiry is to highlight the potentials that exist to explore a synergy between east and west in industrial design with a prospective vision for global, trans-cultural design. The research claims that current design practice often leads to culturally determined - rather than universal - conceptions in design and it attempts to re-conceptualise design as practice within a necessarily hegemonic culture. This hegemony needs to be acknowledged and redressed via increased awareness and changes to the intellectual heritage and autonomy of West European and American industrial design, in its dialogue, practice and education. As an epistemological project to identify knowledge within this discourse, it suggests new methodological and strategic approaches to engage with the crisis the discipline faces in light of globalisation so as to open up future discussions in design discourse and give a voice to the many silences that make up the noise of the world. It attempts to: • Further understand the trajectory of hegemony and globalisation in relation to design, technology and culture. • Critically engage with cross- and trans-cultural, global and social design implications. • Address the discrepancies between designers’ culture and users’ culture, to expose the necessity for more culturally-cognizant design practice and pedagogic provision. The research was initiated by identifying a number of questions that designers and users may consciously or subconsciously confront when faced with products that problematise the imagined universal values of designed products in terms of gender and culture. It explores how certain design solutions produced and developed in the west and their diffusion into global, international markets and foreign cultures could affect those cultures by asking in what ways the usability, aesthetic and symbolic characteristics of these artefacts often unwittingly contribute to the privilege or marginalisation of people from particular socio-cultural backgrounds. The thesis intervention is that product designers are neither explicitly trained to comprehend nor surmount their respective cultural constraints and design education both nationally and internationally is not sufficiently equipped with the tools to acknowledge and confront this. The key arguments presented in this thesis are: 1. Products can often be deconstructed to identify cultural connotations or omissions in their design. 2. Global, a-cultural design and universal usability are fallacies that frequently deny the existence of an underlying cultural hegemony at play. 3. Mass-produced products can gradually homogenise and eradicate cultural diversity contributing to the negative effects of colonialist attitudes and/or globalisation. 4. Academia and educational institutions have the potential to extend awareness in this field to inform and train future designers and graduates to better advance design obligations in global, trans-cultural, cross-cultural and multicultural contexts.