Interdisciplinary Approaches
Communication Design and Urban Ecology: A Cross-Disciplinary Model for Speculative Design-Making
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Alex Liebergesell
Ecology, as an interdisciplinary field that studies the interaction and distribution of resources within ecosystems and habitats, encompasses a variety of pressing dimensions when applied to human activities, such as sustainable city planning and community health. In addressing such issues, ecologists and communication designers share common goals in improving responses to complex social issues, shaping interdependent experiential systems, and framing problems through field study, geospatial analysis, and human interaction models. This paper presents how communication design and urban ecology can conjoin to create generative knowledge, physical and online spaces that promote positive relationships between people and habitats. A case study of a graduate cross-disciplinary studio course describes the progression from data collection, spatial mapping, field research, conceptual modeling to the creation of unique “design ecologies,” communicative platforms that address how we live, work, and share in our communities.
User-centric Design of Off-line Particulate Matter Air Sampler: Scope of Design in Air Pollution Research
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Kaniska Biswas, Tarun Gupta, Bishakh Bhattacharya
Air sampling is executed to collect suspended air particles to determine its quality, identifying pollutants source, prioritizing source control, protecting human health and global well-being. Here, the scope of improvement in the conventional particulate matter air samplers is identified using user-centric design research. An integrated air sampler is designed to intermingle impaction based particle sampling with real-time black carbon measurement by employing cost-effective photo reference method. Automatic change of four filter papers is designed to overcome the problem of attending the sampler by the operator for multiple times even within a day. This design has used the simplicity of inertial impaction for size-specific aerosol collection and designed for sequential multiple filter papers loading to enable unattended and automated sampling. Air samplers need to be transported frequently between laboratory and field sites. In this new air sampler, stair climbing wheels are incorporated to increase mobility in the regular transport and as well as on stairs. Air samplers are primarily placed in the terrace and thus their transportation though stairs is an issue with the existing design. Additionally, this particular air sampler is designed with a retractable drawer like desk and a working light to provide a working platform to facilitate on-site filter loading even in the darkness of the night. This study indicates the advantage of design collaboration in air pollution research and similar fields can be explored with design research as a way forward.
Design Dynamics: Navigating Business Innovation
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Michele Rusk
Whatever the form of entrepreneurship or the context in which it is practiced there is no doubt that entrepreneurs today are de facto leaders and vice versa. In their search for new approaches that are creative, innovative, and effective, increasingly entrepreneurial leaders, are turning to, or themselves becoming, design-innovators to lead creative strategies for socio-economic value creation (Hamel 2007; Martin 2009). Design Thinking as seen by many is a way of ensuring competitive advantage through creative human-centred approaches. As a consequence, many variations of models of Design Thinking have evolved in business education as opposed to the interdisciplinary environment originally envisaged. Typically, few experienced designers are involved and some scholars maintain that Design Thinking is a failed experiment (Nussbaum 2011). The role of design methodologies in creating value for all stakeholders in a given ecosystem is significant as they provide the impetus to collaborate, share and integrate while co-creating the new. But what are the emerging design led methodologies that are the catalysts for different approaches for building knowledge? What are the animating principles for different forms of distributed open innovation? And how can we equip future leaders to better navigate complexity. This paper looks into the link between entrepreneurial leadership and design principles and practices, in doing so it articulates the new theoretical framework of Design Dynamics. This conceptual model offers insight into how entrepreneurial leaders employ cognitive design processes and strategic design principles in practice to engage in continuous development innovation in the pursuit of shared value creation.
