Education guide 'Eindhoven designs' - Technische Universiteit ...

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For example, within the Right through making
project, Master’s students developed systems
and products that aim at empowering and
seducing people to reach the ideals contained
in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
through ‘to kalon’, a synthesis of beauty
and good. Their designs invite specific
behaviour and amplify certain experiences and
perception in order to evoke the principle of a
specific article. This learning activity was done
with design students from different cultural
backgrounds, who together developed a vision
on social and societal transformation (Trotto,
Hummels, Overbeeke, Chanfanelli, Frens and
Goretti, 2009). For example, BeeHugged was
designed for article 25: “Everyone has the right
to a standard of living adequate for the health
and well-being of himself and of his family,
including food, clothing, housing and medical
care and necessary social services, and the
right to security in the event of unemployment,
sickness, disability, widowhood, old age
or other lack of livelihood in circumstances
beyond his control.”
The students translated this article in
BeeHugged, a system where you can share
energy with the principle of the car jump start.
They designed this based on the fact that in
today’s Western society, the majority of people
carry some sort of electronic product. When
people are in need of energy, other people
who have enough energy and are willing to
share it can recharge them. With this system
the students hope to add to a society where
showing mutual care and sharing becomes a
natural habit. The energy level will be visible
on the clothes, and the clothing will also be
the container for the energy. The pace at which
energy is transmitted depends on the amount
of physical contact. For example, a handshake
will result in a lower transport rate than a hug.
This envisioning should be intertwined with,
on the other hand, a rooting in society through
close collaboration with all stakeholders
throughout the entire design process. The
mediation role of the design-to-be can be
addressed in all phases of the design process.
For example, Smart Jacket for neonatal
monitoring with wearable senses was
designed by Sibrecht Bouwstra in her Master’s
graduation project at Industrial Design
(Bouwstra, Chen, Feijs and Bambang Oetomo,
2009).
Her project fits in a larger research project of
TU/e in cooperation with the Máxima Medical
Center for improving the health care of mother
and child before, during and after delivery,
with special emphasis on neonates. Sibrecht
focused from the early phases of her design
process at amplifying the bonding between
parent and child while providing reliable
health monitoring as well as a comfortable
clinical environment for neonatal care. The
Smart Jacket was designed in such a way
that it invites skin contact and reduces the
visible presence of technology. During the
whole process, she kept in discussion with all
stakeholders, including parents and medical
staff, in order to find the desired social
transformations in comparison with current
neonatal monitoring.
We believe in the integration of both
approaches, in which the designer not only
envisions social transformations, but also
explores and validates these visions together
with all stakeholders in the context of use.
Therefore, these two approaches play an
essential role in the reflective transformative
design process, which is explained in chapter
four to six.