Month: February 2018

  • Design thinking to support underserved communities in the North-East of Mexico

    Design thinking to support underserved communities in the North-East of Mexico

    Juan Manuel Fernández Cárdenas and Christina Reynaga-Peña from TEC de Monterrey in Mexico organised a week-long workshop on ‘Reducing marginalisation and promoting inclusive education with the mediation of digital technology’ in February 2018. Here is a summary of the workshop. Over 80 participants, including teachers, teacher trainees, researchers, governmental and non-governmental organisations from the North-East of Mexico, […]

  • The Leaning Chimneys of Stewartby

    The Leaning Chimneys of Stewartby

    Back in the 1930s, the London Brick Company established the largest brickworks in the world across Bedfordshire. Over 2,000 people were employed here at this time. At its peak, there were as many as 162 chimneys, built on the clay soils across Marston Vale, linking 8 villages including Stewartby. Stewartby itself had 32 chimneys each […]

  • Design Museum: what is a good design?

    Design Museum: what is a good design?

    We did a little experiment. What if we organise a visit to the Design Museum (on a grey and rainy February weekend) and everyone from the Design and Innovation Qualification at the OU is invited to come. Who would come and join us? Twenty-five students, 2 tutors and 4 central academics from across the qualification […]

  • Design Bytes

    Design Bytes

    The Industrial Designers Society OF America IDSA has thousands of members and runs design conferences and competitions. It also maintains a website with a large repository of design stories and materials as well as links to external materials on design from interviews with famous designers to new manufacturing methods. Its DesignBytes pages give a great impression of the […]

  • Designing successful consumer products

    Designing successful consumer products

    I have always been interested in design, and as a child I was fascinated by the old washing machines, cookers and lamps in London’s Science Museum. As a teenager I wanted to be an architect, but decided to do engineering, which spanned my interests in design and science. This led me to study mechanical engineering […]