Traffic is a complex environment in which many actors take part; several new technologies bring promises of reducing this complexity. However, cyclists—a particularly vulnerable road user group—have so far been somewhat put aside in these new developments, among them being Cooperative Intelligent Traffic Systems (C-ITS) and their aspects of human–computer interaction. This master’s thesis of industrial design engineering presents five multimodal collision warning signals for cyclists—future ones in these supposed C-ITS—using a novel application of bone conduction headphones (BCH) via sensations of both sound and touch. The thesis project was conducted as a complementary subset of the larger research project ‘V2Cyclist’ orchestrated by RISE Interactive. V2Cyclist set out to adapt the wireless V2X-protocol for cyclists by developing a physical prototype in the form of a bicycle helmet and corresponding human–computer interface. A significant part of the theoretical framework for this thesis was multiple resource theory: tasks in a different modality can be performed more effectively than in one already taxed attentively. Literature on human factors was also applied, particularly with regards to the perception of sound; evidence suggests that humans evolved a perceptual bias for threatening and ‘looming’ sounds that appear to encroach our peripersonal space; ethological findings point toward the association with low-frequency sounds to largeness. Sound design techniques usually applied to more artistic ends, such as synthesis and mixing, were repurposed for the novel, audiotactile context of this thesis. The thesis process was rooted in design thinking and consisted of four stages: context immersion, ideation, concept development, and lastly evaluation; converging and diverging the novel design space of using BCH in an audiotactile, i.e. bimodal way. The divergent approach generated a wide range of ideas. The later convergent approach did not result in one, definite design as further evaluation is required but also due to unknowns in terms of future hardware and network constraints. Given the plurality and diversity of cyclists, it may well follow that there is no optimal collision warning design in the singular. Hence, a range of five different solutions is presented. Each of the five multimodal collision warnings presents a different approach to conveying a sense of danger and urgency. Some warning signals are static in type, while others are more dynamic. Given the presumed rarity of collision warnings, multiple design techniques and rationales were applied separately, as well as in combination, to create different warning stimuli that signaled high urgency in an intuitive way. Namely, the use of: conventions in design and culture; explicitness in the form of speech; visceral appeal via threatening and animalistic timbres; dynamic and procedurally generated feedback; multimodal salience; crossmodal evocation of ‘roughness;’ size-sound symbolism to imply largeness; and innately activating characteristics of looming sounds. / Trafiken är en komplex miljö med många deltagare; diverse ny teknik gör anspråk på att underlätta denna komplexitet. Men, cyklister—en särskilt utsatt grupp av trafikanter—har hittills hamnat i skymundan för sådana utvecklingar. Vidare, aspekten av användbara gränssnitt för cyklister inom sådana uppkopplade och samverkande trafiksystem (C-ITS) har utforskats desto mindre. Det här examensarbetet inom Teknisk design presenterar fem multimodala kollisionsvarningar avsedda för cyklister—framtida sådana i dessa C-ITS—genom en ny och bimodal användning av benledande hörlurar via både ljud och vibrationer. Examensarbetet genomfördes i koppling till forskningsprojektet V2Cyclist, orkestrerat av RISE Interactive, vars projektmål var att anpassa det trådlösa kommunikationsprotokollet V2X för cyklister via en fysisk prototyp i form av en cykelhjälm och parallellt utveckla ett tillhörande användargränssnitt. En viktig del av det teoretiska ramverket för det här examensarbetet grundar sig på multiple resource theory: uppgifter kan utföras mer effektivt i en annan modalitet än i en som redan är belastad med uppmärksamhet. Mänskliga faktorer och teori om vår uppfattning användes; bevis pekar på att människor har evolutionärt utvecklat en bias för hotande ljud som upplevs inkräkta på vårt närmsta personliga revir; etologiska rön visar på en koppling mellan lågfrekventa ljud och ‘storhet.’ Tekniker inom ljuddesign vanligtvis använda till mer artistiska ändamål, såsom syntes och mixning, användes här till godo för att utforska den nya och bimodala designrymden. Processen för arbetet grundade sig i design thinking och bestod av fyra faser: kontextfördjupning, idégenerering, konceptutveckling, och utvärdering. En ny och tidigare outforskad designrymd beståendes av en bimodal, ljudtaktil användning av benledande hörlurar divergerades och konvergerades. Ett initialt utforskande angreppssätt gav upphov till en bred mängd av idéer. Ett senare renodlande angreppssätt gick, dock, inte hela vägen till endast en optimal lösning, då vidare utvärdering krävs men också på grund av okända teknologiska begränsningar. Dessutom, givet cyklisters stora mångfald, kan det möjligtvis följa att det inte finns någon enskild design av den optimala kollisionsvarningen. Ett spann på fem olika lösningar presenteras därmed. Fem koncept för multimodala kollisionsvarningar presenteras där varje variant uttrycker fara och kritiskhet på olika sätt. Vissa är statiska i typ, medan andra verkar mer kontinuerligt och dynamiskt. Det antogs att kollisionsvarningar sker sällan. Olika designtekniker och motiveringar har använts, ibland i kombination med varandra, för att skapa kollisionsvarningar vars avsikter omedelbart förstås: normer inom design och kultur gällande ljud; uttalad kommunikation i form av tal; anspråk på människors biologiska intuition via hotfulla och djurliknande klangfärger; dynamisk och procedurellt genererad feedback; multimodal effektfullhet; korsmodal känsla av grova texturer; size-sound symbolism för att antyda ‘storhet;’ samt de naturligt aktiverande egenskaperna hos looming sounds.

Nos anos recentes tem-se percebido o interesse pela contribuição do design na inovação e nos negócios, mas esta visão com foco no design, por outro lado, ainda não está plenamente inserida na estratégia da indústria. Esta tese tem por objetivo analisar não só a cultura de design na micro e pequena indústria, tomando como exemplo o setor moveleiro no estado de São Paulo, como também, dentro do contexto estratégico, quais são os fatores que interferem e decidem o sucesso ou não da inserção da ferramenta de design e sua gestão. Neste sentido,são estudados os aspectos relativos ao design como diferencial do negócio, a estrutura organizacional das micro e pequenas indústrias, a Gestão de Design como sistema integrador de competências, seu consumidor, e como toda esta estrutura desenvolve as características do design na organização, para finalmente propor um modelo teórico que possa indicar soluções estratégicas para a inserção do design dentro da Micro e Pequena Indústria. A tese inicia-se na proposta de que o design e sua gestão podem alavancar a indústria pela sua visão estratégica, trazendo não só inovação nos conceitos desenvolvidos, própria da cultura do design, bem como sendo um fator integrador de estratégias no âmbito do design e do marketing. O estudo mostra que a Gestão de Design e o Modelo teórico aqui proposto podem ser um componente importante para implementar soluções competitivas e integradoras com outras ferramentas estratégicas da organização. / In recent years, there has been great interest in design innovation and contribution to the business; however, this business vision, focusing on design, is not yet fully in line with the industry strategy. This thesis aims to examine not only the design culture in the Micro and Small Industry, taking as an example the furniture sector in the State of São Paulo, but also within the strategic context and business. These factors interfere with and help decide the success or failure of an integration design tool and its management. In this sense, the aspects studied are design as a differential business, the organizational structure of Micro and Small Industries, Design Management as a system integrator skill, customers, and how all this structure develops the design features in the organization to finally propose a theoretical model that can indicate strategic solutions for integrating design within the business vision. The thesis begins by proposing that design and management can leverage the industry towards its strategic vision, not only innovating developed concepts, its own design culture, but integrating factor strategies in design and marketing as well. The study shows that Design Management and the Theoretical Model proposed herein can be an important component to implement competitive solutions and integrated with other strategic organizational tools.

[pt] Web sites são projetos complexos, que incorporam elementos de Design e de Informática, para a disponibilização de conteúdo na World Wide Web. O presente trabalho parte da hipótese de que Web sites de grande porte, institucionais ou não, que demandam atualização rápida, diária e organizada, apresentam características de projetos de Desenho Industrial, onde é necessária a existência de registros que tornem possível sua reprodução e continuação. Sendo assim, sua documentação é uma ferramenta fundamental em seu processo de manutenção e gerência, e deve servir como uma ferramenta eficiente para o mesmo. A pesquisa aprofundou-se no processo de geração da documentação do Web site da PUC-Rio. Foram consideradas questões de Design e Informática presentes nesse processo, bem como questões de fronteira e interseção entre essas duas áreas, com o objetivo de levantar e analisar dados, e extrair recomendações e conclusões a respeito de questões metodológicas, formatos e formas de representação da informação envolvidas na geração de sua documentação, bem como o uso da mesma como uma ferramenta de apoio ao processo de desenvolvimento e manutenção do site em estudo. Foram identificados vários possíveis desdobramentos de caráter interdisciplinar para essa pesquisa e devido ao ainda pequeno número de publicações a respeito do tema aqui abordado, acredita-se que a mesma ofereça uma relevante contribuição para o preenchimento de lacunas existentes nas áreas de conhecimento relacionadas a documentação, manutenção e gerência de Web sites. / [en] Web sites are complex projects, that incorporate Design and Computing elements, for content publication in the World Wide Web. The present work has as a starting point the hypothesis that large scale Web sites (corporate ones or not), which demand fast, daily and organized updates have caracteristics of Industrial Design Projects, where it is necessary the existence of documents that make possible their reproduction and continuity. Therefore, the documentation is a fundamental tool that should work efficiently in its update and management process. This research work focus on the documentation process of PUC- Rio`s Web site. It has been taken into account Design and Computing issues present in this process, as well as issues present in the border and intersections of these two areas. The objective was to analise the data collected, and extract recommendations and conclusions about the methodologic issues, forms and formats of information representation envolved in the generation of PUC-Rios Web Site documentation and its use as a tool for the sites developing and updating process. There have been identified many interdisciplinary aspects of this research s theme that can be studied further on. And considering the small number of publications with similar approach, we believe this work represents an important contribuition to the areas related to Web sites documentation, updating and management.

<p>När företag ska utveckla produkter och tjänster behöver de informationsunderlag om kunder och användare. Traditionella marknadsundersökningar kräver ett rationellt förhållningssätt och avslöjar åsikter och attityder, men uppvisar brister när det kommer till att upptäcka omedvetna behov hos användare. Lösningen på denna problematik är att observera användare i deras egen kontext, ett tillvägagångssätt som är vanligt bland industridesigners.</p><p>Syftet med studien var att jämföra hur industridesigners och marknadsförare arbetar för att samla in information om användare i samband med produkt- och tjänsteutveckling. Därefter syftade studien till att ställa dessa likheter och skillnader i kontrast till tre teorier: Marketing Research Process, Design Thinking samt Empathic Design. Tre intervjuer genomfördes med tre olika företag: ett industridesignföretag, ett marknadsundersökningsföretag samt ett tjänstedesignföretag.</p><p>Studien resulterade i ett antal slutsatser. Den första är att ett rationellt förhållningssätt inte nödvändigtvis är någonting negativt utan snarare något positivt och elementärt. Tillämpningen måste dock ske på rätt sätt parallellt under produktutvecklingsprocessen, för att verifiera att den framtagna produkten eller tjänsten faktiskt fyller ett konsumentbehov på marknaden. Ytterligare en slutsats är att metoder och tekniker som ses som typiska för designers även tillämpas och nyttjas av ett traditionellt marknadsundersökningsföretag. Saknas dessa typer av kompetenser inom företaget hyrs designers in som experter.</p><p>Alla de undersökta företagen, inklusive det renodlade marknadsundersökningsföretaget, använde sig av observationsmetoder där de observerade användare i deras egen kontext, samtidigt som de interagerade med produkten eller tjänsten. De hade således lyckats ta sig runt problematiken med att upptäcka de dolda omedvetna behoven. </p><p>Likheterna mellan de två olika professionerna har varit mer utmärkande än skillnaderna, och den övergripande slutsatsen blir således att verkligheten har kommit ifatt den teoretiska diskussionen. Marknadsförare och industridesigners arbetar mer lika än olika.</p>

<p>This thesis is structured in six chapters. Chapter I contains an introduction and includes purpose, theory, method, and concepts. The main purpose, as depicted by the title, is to examine the roots of Swedish ideology concerning what today is generally named design, as embodied in the concept of more beautiful or better things for everyday life (in Swedish: ”vackrare vardagsvara”).</p><p>Chapter II contains a background and includes philosophical ideas and aesthetic movements in Europe which have influenced the Swedish Society of Arts and Crafts (in Swedish ”Svenska Slöjdföreningen”, abbreviated SSF) which was later renamed the Swedish Society of Crafts and Design (in Swedish: ”Föreningen Svensk Form”). It considers these activities: the Arts and Crafts movement in England, the Swedish national romantic movement, Deutscher Werkbund in Germany, and Swedish moulders of public opinion and new ideas, like Ellen Key, Carl Larsson and Gregor Paulsson.</p><p>Chapter III is an ideological biography of Gregor Paulsson. The chapter deals with biographical data and ideological development, and the social aesthetical texts which were important in his activity in the National Museum and as director of The Swedish Society of Arts and Crafts. Gregor Paulsson is considered mainly in his role as social aesthetical propagandist and museologist.</p><p>Chapter IV concerns the early history and activities of the Swedish Society of Arts and Crafts seen as an introduction to the Baltic Exhibition 1914, and the subsequent schism which eventually led to its reorganization and a new ideological orientation. Its activities were directed towards increased cooperation between artists and industry, and a special department was established as an employment office for companies and designers under the management of the textile artist Elsa Gullberg. This chapter also includes a brief portrait of key persons in the Society.</p><p>Chapter V is a study in several sections of the articles for everyday use seen in industrial practice, with Gustavsberg’s china factory and Orrefors’ glassworks as two separate historical studies. The 1917 Home Exhibition is surveyed as an example of the educational ambitions in the development of people’s taste. The focus of the chapter, however, is the international industrial art exhibition in Paris 1925, Exposition International des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, and the debate about it in the Swedish and French press.</p><p>Chapter VI consists of a concluding discussion with a final epilogue. It contains suggested questions for future research including relations between design and ethics.</p>

This thesis is structured in six chapters. Chapter I contains an introduction and includes purpose, theory, method, and concepts. The main purpose, as depicted by the title, is to examine the roots of Swedish ideology concerning what today is generally named design, as embodied in the concept of more beautiful or better things for everyday life (in Swedish: ”vackrare vardagsvara”). Chapter II contains a background and includes philosophical ideas and aesthetic movements in Europe which have influenced the Swedish Society of Arts and Crafts (in Swedish ”Svenska Slöjdföreningen”, abbreviated SSF) which was later renamed the Swedish Society of Crafts and Design (in Swedish: ”Föreningen Svensk Form”). It considers these activities: the Arts and Crafts movement in England, the Swedish national romantic movement, Deutscher Werkbund in Germany, and Swedish moulders of public opinion and new ideas, like Ellen Key, Carl Larsson and Gregor Paulsson. Chapter III is an ideological biography of Gregor Paulsson. The chapter deals with biographical data and ideological development, and the social aesthetical texts which were important in his activity in the National Museum and as director of The Swedish Society of Arts and Crafts. Gregor Paulsson is considered mainly in his role as social aesthetical propagandist and museologist. Chapter IV concerns the early history and activities of the Swedish Society of Arts and Crafts seen as an introduction to the Baltic Exhibition 1914, and the subsequent schism which eventually led to its reorganization and a new ideological orientation. Its activities were directed towards increased cooperation between artists and industry, and a special department was established as an employment office for companies and designers under the management of the textile artist Elsa Gullberg. This chapter also includes a brief portrait of key persons in the Society. Chapter V is a study in several sections of the articles for everyday use seen in industrial practice, with Gustavsberg’s china factory and Orrefors’ glassworks as two separate historical studies. The 1917 Home Exhibition is surveyed as an example of the educational ambitions in the development of people’s taste. The focus of the chapter, however, is the international industrial art exhibition in Paris 1925, Exposition International des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, and the debate about it in the Swedish and French press. Chapter VI consists of a concluding discussion with a final epilogue. It contains suggested questions for future research including relations between design and ethics.

När företag ska utveckla produkter och tjänster behöver de informationsunderlag om kunder och användare. Traditionella marknadsundersökningar kräver ett rationellt förhållningssätt och avslöjar åsikter och attityder, men uppvisar brister när det kommer till att upptäcka omedvetna behov hos användare. Lösningen på denna problematik är att observera användare i deras egen kontext, ett tillvägagångssätt som är vanligt bland industridesigners. Syftet med studien var att jämföra hur industridesigners och marknadsförare arbetar för att samla in information om användare i samband med produkt- och tjänsteutveckling. Därefter syftade studien till att ställa dessa likheter och skillnader i kontrast till tre teorier: Marketing Research Process, Design Thinking samt Empathic Design. Tre intervjuer genomfördes med tre olika företag: ett industridesignföretag, ett marknadsundersökningsföretag samt ett tjänstedesignföretag. Studien resulterade i ett antal slutsatser. Den första är att ett rationellt förhållningssätt inte nödvändigtvis är någonting negativt utan snarare något positivt och elementärt. Tillämpningen måste dock ske på rätt sätt parallellt under produktutvecklingsprocessen, för att verifiera att den framtagna produkten eller tjänsten faktiskt fyller ett konsumentbehov på marknaden. Ytterligare en slutsats är att metoder och tekniker som ses som typiska för designers även tillämpas och nyttjas av ett traditionellt marknadsundersökningsföretag. Saknas dessa typer av kompetenser inom företaget hyrs designers in som experter. Alla de undersökta företagen, inklusive det renodlade marknadsundersökningsföretaget, använde sig av observationsmetoder där de observerade användare i deras egen kontext, samtidigt som de interagerade med produkten eller tjänsten. De hade således lyckats ta sig runt problematiken med att upptäcka de dolda omedvetna behoven.  Likheterna mellan de två olika professionerna har varit mer utmärkande än skillnaderna, och den övergripande slutsatsen blir således att verkligheten har kommit ifatt den teoretiska diskussionen. Marknadsförare och industridesigners arbetar mer lika än olika.

In this knowledge economy, organizations are leveraging their competence through the knowledge they possess. Managing knowledge will potentially retain the competence held by the organization if knowledge generated across its projects and units is captured, structured and reused. Even though many tools and techniques are proposed in the literature to support these activities, their adoption in industry has been meagre. This may be due to development of tools without basing them on substantial and careful descriptive studies. This raises the following research issues: the knowledge processes and knowledge sources available in organizations and their characteristics need to be understood better. To address these gaps, following objectives are addressed in this research: ♦ To understand the specific needs and capability of the organization for capture and reuse of product development knowledge and ♦ To evaluate various alternative supports for capture and structure of relevant, evolving product development knowledge for reuse. To address these objectives, two observational studies were conducted in the organizations. To get a broader picture about the knowledge processes occurring in the organization, a KRIT model is proposed which is an acronym for Knowledge of solutions-Requirements-Interactions-Tasks, in which interactions of the designers with people and tools play the central role in processing knowledge during design. The KRIT model is validated through the demonstration of the existence of its nodes and links. From the observations it has been found that interactions ‘designer working with computer’, ‘two designers working with a computer’ and ‘two designers interacting with each other’ are most frequently occurred, and occupied most of the time during designing. Any tools to support knowledge capture and reuse should support these interactions such that capture and reuse can be intuitive and in-built in a natural way into a designer’s work habits. It is emphasized that there is a substantial need to increase the percentage of time spent by designers on capturing knowledge during the design process. This increase in time would lead to decrease in a designers’ time spent on knowledge acquisition and dissemination provided designers are capturing reusable knowledge. To answer capture and reuse of knowledge in detail in the observational studies, a new taxonomy of knowledge is proposed. By linking the representations of argumentation, designer’s activities, and the artefact being designed, we argued that the expressiveness of this taxonomy is high compared to the others proposed in the literature. The taxonomy has three broad categories of knowledge: topics, classes, and activities. Based on the definitions of the factors used in the taxonomy and the analysis of the protocols, the factors in each group under each category are argued to be mutually exclusive. In order to study the links between the proposed categories and factors in the taxonomy of knowledge, a method for converting the questions and answers (from the protocol data) into a generic format is framed. The taxonomy is validated comprehensively, and is able to cover various stages of design. Most of the designers’ time was spent working with a CAD package, in which most of the kinds of knowledge mentioned in the proposed taxonomy of knowledge was neither captured not reused. The important observations noted by comparing the knowledge captured in the preliminary study and the main study are as follows: Compared to the preliminary study, process related information and knowledge are captured higher in the main study. In the main study behavioural related content is captured more; whereas in the preliminary study structural content is captured more. The factors organization, usage, maintenance and sales captured in the preliminary study are not at all captured in the main study. In order to assess the usefulness of the knowledge captured, the kinds of knowledge needs of designers were compared with the kinds of knowledge captured. The important observations about the knowledge needs are: Irrespective of the design stages, in almost 50% of the questions, designers interacted with others to know about old issues or proposals in both the studies. A designer’s time for designing would benefit considerably if the answers for these 50% of the old questions were captured and made available for retrieval in formal documents. In both the studies, proposals based questions played a vital role in the questions analyzed. It shows that considerable proportion of time was spent by the designers on validating, by asking questions, the answers known to them. In contrast to the preliminary study, the designers’ needs for process-related information or knowledge were much higher than that for product-related information or knowledge. Comparing the generic questions obtained from the knowledge needs and knowledge captured reveals that only 14% and 26% with product related content and only 10% and 11.3% of the process based content asked by designers during designing were captured in the preliminary and the main study. These results show that there is a mismatch between knowledge captured and knowledge needed by the designers. This may be one of the primary reasons for the poor usage of documents in the organization. The generic questions generated from the questions asked by the designers and various documents will act as a guideline to the designers for what knowledge and information should and should not to be captured. Due to restrictions in the observations, a questionnaire survey was conducted to achieve the objective to collect 10% of total number of employees’ perspectives about the issues considered in this research. The important observations from the analyses of the collected questionnaire are: Designers’ perceive all types of interactions as important and frequent for information generation and sharing. These results are contradictory to the personal observations in which only interactions ‘designer working with computer’ and ‘two designers working with a computer’ occurred frequently. This shows that designers are unable to identify the kinds of interaction which they perform in their daily activities. Due to this, the information processes occurring within these interactions are not perceptible to the designers. Designers perceive that they get the right information at the right time in only 4 or more out of 10 for most of the times. This perception illustrates there is substantial need for the development of support to satisfy the information needs of designers. Analyses of the types of questions reveal that the question asking behavior of the designers is not static; the major share of questions falling under the category ‘question from answer given’ could be interpreted as: designers often do not frame exact questions to fulfil their requirements; they grab the opportunity to take as much as knowledge as possible during an interaction. Analyses of the types of answers reveal that designers gave more inferences on their answers in order to give a better response, which in turn should help reduce the number of questions subsequently asked especially in the protocol coded as ‘new answer’. Two studies have been used to assess the effectiveness of seven tools for supporting knowledge capture and reuse. The important observations from the initial study are: Mobile E-Notes TakerTM is ranked higher because this equipment provides a blend of properties between the paper and computer. These observations stress the importance of features provided for knowledge generation, modification, capture and reuse in the system. The observations from analyzing the three top rated tools (Mobile E-Notes TakerTM, Tablet with viewing facility and Computer with RhinocerosTM CAD package) to understand influence of these tools on knowledge capture and reuse during conceptual designing are: The differences observed in the percentage of capture between the usage of the three tools demonstrate that tools have an influence on the knowledge capture activity. Even though none of the three tools capture adequate knowledge during designing, Mobile e-Notes TakerTM seems to be the best tool for capture compared to the other two tools, both in the original and redesign experiments. These results suggest that some other mechanisms should be added to these tools so that their effectiveness of capturing could be increased. One mechanism is to incorporate the proposed KRIT model and the taxonomy of knowledge during designing. This integration will be one of the good mechanisms to aid knowledge capture and reuse, because the knowledge capture will occur along with the knowledge creation process. We believe that through this integration the purpose to enhance the knowledge capture and reuse during the design process will be achieved.

I denna rapport redovisas ett examensarbete av Edvin Sjöberg utfört i samarbete med Ödins Garveri i Visby. Projektets mål har varit att ta fram ett tillverkningsunderlag för en ny axelremsväska i läder för män. Väskan är konstruerad för att vara materialbesparande, hållbar och elegant. Faktainsamlingen ger en översikt av de vanligaste sätten att bereda och garva skinn, sömnadsteknik och tillverkningsteknik. Målgrupps- och marknadsanalys har varit vägledande för utformningen av slutprodukten och stort fokus har lagts på modell- och skissarbete. Slutprodukten är en herrväska med mycket hög materialkvalité, formgivning inspirerad av klassiskt herrmode och med väl planlagda och genomtänka detaljer. / This report presents a thesis of Edvin Sjöberg performed in collaboration with Ödins Tannery in Visby.  The project's goal has been to develop a manufacturing base for a new leather shoulder bag for men. The bag is designed to be easy to produce without material loss, to be durable and stylish.  The essay provides an overview of the most common ways to prepare and tan hides, sewing techniques and manufacturing technologies. Audience and market analysis has aided the design of the finished product and focus has been placed on model and sketch work.  The end product is a bag made from high quality materials, design inspired by classic men's fashion and with well-planned and thoughtful details.

From 1922-1942, the Austrian-American architect and designer Frederick Jacob Kiesler (1890-1965) designed architecture based on the idea that it must complement the physiological and psychological processes of the human body. In order to reconcile the technological changes wrought by industrialized production with the need for structures that promoted human health, he developed an inspired model for interactive design. His formative experiences in Europe working with De Stijl and the G-Group, along with his exposure to Central European examples of architecture, art, and science set the agenda for his later works. Yet he never stopped experimenting with new concepts that would bolster his essential philosophy of body-generated space. After he immigrated to the United States in 1926, Kiesler’s pursued his ideas about physiological and psychological architecture within a new cultural milieu and a network of encouraging personal connections. He forged relationships with a sympathetic community of émigré industrial designers and architects who promoted his efforts to integrate modern technology with new design idioms. During his first fifteen years in New York City, Kiesler looked to contemporary science as a way to advance a model of flexible architectural design. He also worked at the cutting edge of industrial design research and was an early protagonist of human factors engineering methods. His body-centered methodology stood in opposition to aesthetic and reductive approaches toward modernism and functionalism. Instead of designing according to a priori determinations of what was functional and what was not, Kiesler’s functionalism was based on an iterative design practice that would reveal progressively more useful and universally applicable forms. / text