Category: Design comment
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The Design Group at TEDx – Part 2: Imagine what’s next… the future of aircraft manufacturing is additive
On 8th November 2019 I participated in TEDx Open University. When I sent off my audition video last summer, I had no idea how much time and effort it would take to develop a 10 minute talk! I applied to speak at TEDx because I was keen to share my research on sustainable manufacturing with…
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FabLab Yucatan – prototyping the future together
Ileana (President of the Fab City Yucatán Association), Oscar, and Carlos gave us a tour of Fablab Yucatan when we visited Merida, Mexico in November 2019. You can watch the video of the tour on https://www.facebook.com/728801612/videos/10157850699341613/ (approx. 1h 15min) The Lab first opened as HUBlab in 2015. The vision was to form a creative ecosystem of…
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Digital Twins
‘Digital twins’ are in the headlines this year and I have attended two events focusing on digital twins in the last few weeks. The first was in the context of the built environment and the second in aerospace and it was interesting to compare the approaches. A digital twin is a digital replica of a physical system…
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Transformative Transport design
Sometimes something happens that represents the tipping point between simply enhancing the design of an existing product or service and when a transformative redesign happens. I am wondering if we are about to hit this for urban transport systems. The modern tram is frequently seen as a core high quality public transport system, but its…
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The Design Group at TEDx – Part 1: Learning to Change Our Minds
The Open University hosted TEDx last week, providing a platform for a range of interesting and diverse speakers across the UK. The Design Group (not short of something to say in public) was represented by no less than four speakers. Claudia Eckert, Helen Lockett, Stephen Peake, and Derek Jones. Over the next few weeks each…
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Designing Urban Atmospheres
In everyday speech, people may say that a restaurant has a very romantic atmosphere. Likewise, the atmosphere of a shopping centre may be said to be vibrant. It may be difficult so explain exactly what such an atmosphere is or how it is cultivated but we can be certain that a design expert of some…
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Mackintosh & the Glasgow Style Gallery- Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
I was in Glasgow recently, and lucky enough to visit the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum . The grandeur of the building itself is worth a visit. The organ playing was a memorable experience, as was seeing the beautiful paintings in the Glasgow Boys Gallery and the products in the Mackintosh and The Glasgow Style Gallery.…
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Engineering design on show
The Engineering Design Show in the Coventry Ricoh Arena last week provided a great opportunity for Design academics Nicole Lotz and Georgy Holden to see companies showing state-of-the-art design engineering as well as to meet with one of our new design students. A strong theme in the show was 3D printing. This ranged from day…
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Designers Telling Stories
Netflix has recently released season two of Abstract: The Art of Design, a series which celebrates innovative designers from a range of fields, including fashion, graphics, interface, architecture, automotive, etc. Some of the designers may be familiar to you, if not by name then perhaps by output. For example, Tinker Hatfiled (Season 1 Episode 2)…
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Yorkshire Sculpture Park
The Open University is part of a Centre for Doctoral Training, called DesignStar http://www.designstar.org.uk. The centre had organised a Summer School at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park https://ysp.org.uk a couple of weeks back. On the first day, the group of around 20 students and supervisors had a choice to attend either of two sessions led by the…