Redesign for Longer Lifespan
The subject of the first project is a redesign of a personal care product by considering the details of (dis)assembly, maintenance, and repair. ‘The act of fixing things can both prolong the life of an artifact, and create new values through the process of engagement for its users’ (Chapman, 2015). It may be helpful to think of this project through the metaphor of ‘patient’. A correct diagnosis is necessary to provide the patient with the appropriate treatment. The framework of the project could be imagined as a part of a system that includes a service that is based on conveying the vital information provided by users, like ‘paramedics’, to the technical personnel who might be the ‘doctor’ of the patient/product.
Within this context, users should be able to open the product easily, determine the problem correctly, and inform the service personnel. Meanwhile, the product should communicate with its user in a clear and straightforward manner, allowing for easy disassembly and diagnosis. Additionally, the product needs to be strengthened in terms of its form, structure, and material to reduce the necessity of repair.
The students who are enrolled in this studio course are expected to redesign a personal care electrical appliance to enhance the maintenance and repair to be done easily by:
designing the internal organization properly,
suggesting a user-friendly interface and assembly details,
enabling the user to use the product longer, which needs to consider:
form-function relationships,
the human factors,
the durability of the product.
Design for Citizen Science
Citizen science is a practice in which non-scientist individuals collect data to be used in scientific research. It is a rising trend due to the development of technology, while contributing to research projects in various fields such as astronomy, medicine, art history, and social sciences, most prevalently in environmental science (Goudeseune et al., 2020). While citizen science is an attempt at democratizing science, a significant need for standardization arises in terms of the quality of the acquired information (Heigl et al., 2019).
This project aims to understand the motivation behind people's involvement in citizen science activities and design products to enhance the dissemination and proliferation of these activities while standardizing the collected data. In this project, students are encouraged to research user lifestyles (urban/non-urban dwellers, nature observers, extreme/outdoor sports enthusiasts, etc.) and the environmental science fields to determine what type of data will be collected. The research analysis led the students to design a product that can be integrated into the user’s daily or special interest practices to collect data.
The students need to research different ways of collecting data and choose the appropriate one that corresponds to the problem definition.
Possible user categories are exemplified below:
Nature observers
Extreme sportspeople
Urban dwellers
Non-urban / Rural dwellers
Travelers
Nature-related professionals - Farmers, fishers, breeders, etc.
Children (Educational Programmes)
Adult (Educational Programmes)
Glitter in Litter
The subject of this project is designing a waste collector tool and a set of bins for the parks and recreational areas. Since environmental issues are a hot topic in any context and field, this project focuses on waste sorting which has importance in regard to raising awareness of waste-conscious attitudes.
At the consulting meeting with the department of Culture and Social Affairs of Besiktas Municipality, it is strongly emphasized that there is a need to separate the bio-waste from non-biological ones. There is a need for collecting especially dog feces in open areas which is critical because of sanitary concerns but also, dog feces can be used as an input for black soldier fly the composting method that transforms the bio-waste into organic fertilizer.
The students designed a tool that is capable of collecting at least 3 different waste types which are commonly seen in parks and recreational areas. Additionally, a set of waste bins were designed pertinent to those 3 waste types. One of the waste types was dog feces as a must. The other two were specified based on field explorations and literature research.
Positive Vibes: Mood for Life
Catalog available at: https://tasarim.itu.edu.tr/docs/librariesprovider69/default-document-library/positive-vibes-mood-for-life.pdf?sfvrsn=ca3800c0_0
Nowadays, people all around the world are dealing with the psychological consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, besides its severe medical consequences. The ones who have not been infected are mostly in lockdown at home and have faced the effects of being socially isolated, as well as staying indoors for long periods of time, and having to experience new work or study routines.
In such an environment where people interact with products more than with other people, it will be fair to assume that their relationship with products will change in terms of affiliation with them and their expectations from them. This brief has challenged students to think about new trends and the emerging user-product relationship, while encouraging them to create positive vibes and enhance the psychological well-being of users.
In this context, the students created a persona based on thorough user research and presented a narrative to describe the physical and emotional needs of the persona, drawing on Jordan’s (2000) Four Pleasure Approach, which consists of Physio-Pleasure, Socio-Pleasure, Psycho-Pleasure, and Ideo-Pleasure. This analysis led the students to decide on the type of electrical appliance that should be designed in accordance with the problem definition.
Structural Packaging Design
Packaging is said to have two major qualities which are namely structural and graphical. Specifically, in this project, we pay special attention to structural qualities, which we can refer to as primary inherent functions, such as protection, transportation, carrying, and display. In this project, students are required to design packaging made from corrugated cardboard that holds two goblets.
This is a material-driven and outcome-based project, where it is expected to explore the potential of materials satisfactorily. The packaging that is designed should
protect two goblets against falling from a certain height,
be convenient for transportation standards,
be carried during the shopping experience,
display itself on the shelf,
be made out of corrugated cardboard,
not contain any adhesives (glue, tape, etc.)
Portable Workplace Design
According to Health and Safety Executive’s Workplace Regulations Report, workplace means “any premises or part of premises which are (…) made available to any person as a place of work, and includes any place within the premises to which such person has access while at work; and (…) where facilities are provided for use in connection with the place of work.” Thus, a workplace may range from home offices to large office buildings or factories, together with public/urban spaces, to which we draw our attention in the scope of this project.
As the main focus of this module will be on portable and collapsible workplaces of street hawkers, it arguably remains a relatively untouched area in terms of design, enabling novel opportunities and interventions, especially in regard to the economic and cultural significance of these fields of work in Türkiye.
The students are required to design a portable workplace for the street hawkers (either bagel- [simit] or mussel-sellers) assigned to you. These workplaces are to be organized around a central sales unit that fulfills the primary functions of containing, displaying, and exchanging.
Yet, the project has a wider scope, as it covers all the material objects associated with this sales activity, such as the necessary utensils (hand-held tools) to be used, waste management, and service supplements (napkins, bags, etc.). This project requires conducting proper and consistent user research, a thorough material exploration, a neat structural analysis, and a systematic execution.
In this respect, a research phase is planned to understand the needs, challenges, and routines of the users, as well as to explore materials and select suitable manufacturing techniques.
