Tag: design

And after what ? – Part 1

In France, the lockdown ended a week ago …

… here, in Scotland, we are still waiting to know what is the plan (personally, not sure I am looking forward to the end when I see that very few people are wearing masks in supermarkets and the street …).

This let me wonder what could be our interactions in the next couple of months with friends, colleagues and strangers. And if these changes will last or be temporary.

With friends and family, the hardest part will probably be to avoid hugs. It will be even more difficult after this long time without seeing our loved ones.
At work, it is going to be a very difficult period for a lot of business affected by the economical crisis after this worldwide lockdown – and also, depending on the working conditions & interactions are going to be either hell (working with 3years old is the first example which comes to my mind) or effortless (if you are working in an office and can reorganise the space, or still able to work remotely).

The one I am the most intrigued on the long term, is the change of our relationships with ‘others’: is this crisis going to make us closer to each other, foster solidarity OR push us apart even more?

 

We have noticed during our rare walks in Edinburgh that people we see in the street are keeping their distances, crossing the road to respect the 2 meters distance rule – which is great – however, they are also avoiding eye contact. Like you could catch the virus by looking at someone 5 meters away from you.
It is quite sad as it is the opposite attitude of what we were used: strangers helping you in the street if you were lost, people greeting you when walking in the hills,  in the pub you could engage the conversation with strangers very naturally… we felt welcome in Edinburgh: there was no fear or judgement in the eyes of people living here – and we found that this openness was contagious as even the tourists would be relaxed and friendly (* this is my personal view, and it is most probably not shared by everyone).

 

Unfortunately, since the begging of this lockdown, there is a big switch in the way people interact with each other (* again my perspective only). There is this new fear of ‘other’ (I was familiar with it in France but not here): you can not even expect someone to smile back at you anymore. I am wondering if it might become the ‘new normal’.

Even though I am hoping like most of you that this pandemic could be the trigger of a new and better society where we consume locally, responsibly, where animals & plants are thriving, where the wealth is divided more fairly…
Sadly, just by observing these new behaviours, in addition to the way our governments are handling the crisis, I doubt that it is going to be the revolution we are wishing for.

 

These thoughts also made me think of what could be new emergent design to encourage to respect social distancing, while still being able to socialise outside of our household.

I started imaging objects and new settings for social interaction.

These are my 3 first ones (more to come) – if you have suggestions of what could be used to distance ourselves from other – please feel free to share your ideas – the crazier the better.

 

I was surprised when I say that my eccentric ideas, were actually happening in real life when I saw this article on my Facebook feed:

 

 

If you speak french:

I would recommend listening to Vincent Lindon text: extraordinary speech on the current situation and the way our politicians are dealing with the situation and some proposals for the ‘after’ – you can try to switch on the automatic subtitles for my English speaking friends.

Also, this text by Titiou Lecoq about the evolution (or non-evolution) of Women’s place in society after the pandemic.

 

All the GIF have been altered by me. 

GFW18 – Winner of the Stand Award

Stand design for Graduate Fashion Week 2018 in London.
Freelance for the Fashion department of Edinburgh College of Art
Edinburgh, Scotland 2018

WINNER OF THE STAND AWARD

I designed this stand for Edinburgh College of Art with sustainability and usability as the core concepts.

Recycled & Recyclable Core

The core components (paper tubes and plastic sheets) are already recycled materials, linked together with paper clips and screws, making it easy to assemble, dismantle and reuse in another configuration. This also leaves the materials clean, free from glue or paint that would end their recycling cycle. The coat hangers are also made out of cardboards, except for the metal hooks and clips obviously.

Taking the concept further, additional storage boxes and decoration of the stand have been made from Graduate Fashion Week 2018 waste, collected on site from skips.

Accessible Showcase

The different heights of the tables make the stand accessible, as well as the shaping the space. This is enhanced by the lightning which brings up the portfolios and creates a unique, warm, boutique atmosphere. The petals have different heights to showcase different length of garments, and also giving every students equal opportunity to showcase their work.

Optimum Design

The design was though through to limit the amount of waste & lost raw material to a minimum; every millimetre counts!
The left over of the tubes used to create the hangers have been used to make the ‘heads’ of the mannequins and the lamps are designed using the centre of the petals.

New Beginning

Almost every elements of the stand will be repurposed for next years’ event or donated to local charities at the end of GFW18, and when the time comes, they can be recycled again at a local waste management centre!

 

 

Material

Kalico Plastic sheets
UK based company converting waste plastics into colourful, aesthetic boards
100% recycled , 100% recyclable

Paper tubes
UK based company
100% recyclable

EDIBLE plants
Origin UK
Will be donated to the community garden at the Edinburgh Royal Hospital

SCRAP MDF-BULBS-HOOKS-CLIPS
EU based companies, local shops
To be reused in the build of 2019 stand 

 

 

 

Thank you to

Mark Kobine for your help, advices and sharing pains aux chocolats.
Emily Ford-Halliday & Mal Burkinshaw for the opportunity and trusting me.
Linda Wilson, Juliet Dearden & Claire Ferguson for your support.
Wendy Bruce for your kindness and making everything easy.
Design Informatics for letting me use the studio and workshops.

Dominoes

More informations in the report produced along the process.

The Dominoes have been designed as a concept of a tangible interface for biologists to sketch DNA constructs. The interface consists of a series of pieces representing different DNA parts, using Synthetic Biology Open Language (SBOL).
By manipulating these pieces and snapping them together biologists can sketch DNA sequences. Then, the aim of this project would be to be able be transferred into Genetic Constructor (Autodesk CAD tool for DNA design) to insert the sequences into the sketch blocks and test the validity of their design.
It could then be send to be assembled by Edinburgh Genome Foundry (EGF), a facility at the University of Edinburgh that offers a unique robotic platform to synthesise DNA.
 


 
I have conducted a series of interview with biologist to determine what are the needs: how do they currently design DNA, how they would use them, where, when, what symbols or shape they are using most, do they need different kit depending the organism they are working with (yeast, mammalian cells, plants…) …
It also allowed me to discuss their projects to determine what could be potential future needs. I am currently in the process of designing the fist set of prototype to be tested in different labs at the University of Edinburgh.
 

 
In addition, during these interviews, we discussed how they would communicate the DNA design process to the general public: how to keep the process simple but accurate and what could be an interesting interaction to understand the principles of synthetic biology. It resulted in another project ‘Tales of Synthetic Biology’ presented Here.

From these interviews I have designed a kit of general blocs and 3 different options for the EMMA kit.

Design – general blocs
  • Use of 5 different colours for the coding sequence (promoter – CDS – terminator) to visualise 1 transcription unit. It will be useful when one transcription unit is will be to be express in the bacteria for the duplication (antibiotic resistance for example) and others will be expressed in the plant/yeast…
  • Blank pieces with directional arrow for projects where the direction is crucial at the early design stage.
  • Larger pieces for Transcription Unit (containing promoter – CDS – terminator) for high level sketch.
  • Small pieces for localisation signal, tag… to annotate some aspect inside a block
  • Two different proposals to visualise the strength of a promoter.
  • Two special set to design sequences for Golden Gate of Gibson assembly, in-order to determine the ending and connecting sequence of the blocks.
  • Each type of block is done with a speci c colour + a symbol to give the maximum visual markers, helping to design a sequence.
Design – EMMA kit

One kit where the colours correspond to type of the blocks, one where they correspond to position of the blocks and finally to the type of the blocks and they are numbered for the position.
 

Tales of Synthetic Biology

More informations in the report produced along the process.

I imagined an activity composed of cards that allows participants to ‘create’ personalised engineered ‘thing’. They first would have to choose an ‘organism’ and then create a sequence in order to modify it; and finally explain the story behind their creation. Encouraged to reflect on the implications and outcomes (positive and negative) of such creation, it would give both insights of what the general public inspirations for synthetic biology are and a vision of the hopes and fears of the society. Moreover, it would introduce the basic grammar of DNA and its visualisation.
The aim of this activity is not only to inform participants about the processes of DNA design but also to invite reflection on what it means to design through living organisms.

 

 

I have conducted a series of interview with biologists to determine what how they would communicate the DNA design process to the general public: how to keep the process simple but accurate and what could be an interesting interaction to understand the principles of synthetic biology (the same interviews helped to develop the ‘Dominoes’ project).

The final design is a set of cards composed of 25 organisms cards (plus 15 blank ones), 8 promoters, 15 coding sequences (CDS) (plus 15 blank ones) & 8 terminator, as well as 53 story cards, allowing the participants to explain the story behind their creation.

I have tested them during 5 sessions (more than 20 people from designers, artists, biologists, engineers, technicians…) and twice during Louise Mackenzie ‘Transformation – Thinking Through Making With Life transgenic bio-art’ workshops at ASCUS lab Summerhall as part of Edinburgh International Science Festival 2017.

 

 

In total I collected: 36 stories, 10 new CDSs and 5 new organisms.

There is no clear tendency in the answers, same range of fantasy story (8%) than proposal for health (7%). Being able to gather more data would help to identify a trend (if there is one). I could imagine developing a webapp, where users could create in the same way (with drag and drop) sequences and write stories link to them. Then, they could share them on social media.
In addition, it would allow to collect thoughts, reactions from the comments and like section. A very small questionnaire after the activity could also help to gather the data from the type of story produced, allowing live data analysis.

Half of the stories are human-centred, while only one quarter would modify human. It suggests that most of the modi cation imagined would be beneficial for humans even if an animal or a plant is the target of the modi cation.

Even though I encouraged to reflect on the consequences (advantages, risks…) on the story card, only 3 stories have a sentence about it. To get more insight on this aspect and encourage broader reflection, designing a longer activity would be necessary.
The sequence and the story would be the first chapter, then the participant of the workshop could have to spot what are the elements part of the ecosystem of this organism and relations with some aspects of human society: cultural effects, group behaviour, social change, social trade-offs, political and economic systems, social conflict, global interdependence… It would be asked to reflect on these connections and establish where could be the potential risks, dangers, uncertainties but also advantages, benefits or values. Each group could analyse the sequence of other groups. From that – chapter 3 – they would come back to their original design and have to change it, taking into consideration the observations from chapter 2. A second iteration of
the second chapter and a third iteration of the sequence could be considered. It would help to illustrate that each choice creates new conditions and entanglements with other factors which result in more constrains in the design.
The aim would be to emphasise the interconnectivity of ecosystems and human society, and how synthetic biology could become an important source of disturbance and that each new design should be carefully considered.

 

 

 

In order to allow to reflect on some of the stories already created, promote the project and share the ideas, I have decided to illustrate some of the cards. We could imagine a series of ‘postcards from the future’ as a series of illustration, promoted on a dedicated website or in an exhibition during a scientific conference, where these stories could be the starting point to discuss public opinion and ideas on synthetic biology as well as the implications of the discipline in human society and on natural ecosystem.

 

 

The next step in the development of this project would be to redesign the cards and create a game. Some aspects have already been explore with the help of Erika Szymanski, Research Fellow, Science, Technology & Innovation Studies at the University of Edinburgh.

Videos from Design Meets Synthetic Biology Workshop

More informations in a blog post I wrote few months ago and this published bog post from innovate UK.

On 12th July 2016, we (Larissa Pschetz and I) organised the Design meets Synthetic Biology workshop, where we invited biologists, engineers, designers, artists and social scientists to design domestic artefacts through the lenses of synthetic biology, also considering issues of representation, access and perception of this emerging field. 

I created two video clip from the individuals interviews we made of some of the participants during the workshop. We asked them to share their vision of the future synthetic biology, their hope and fears… The result gives an overview of the range of practitioners gravitating around the discipline. The long version (18m10s) is aimed to be used as an exhibition piece. The shorter version (6min14s), is to publicise the workshop, be shown during lectures and presentations.

 

 

“Designing with Living Organisms” at Research through Design (RTD) conference 2017

I had the chance to present “Designing with Living Organisms” at Research through Design (RTD) conference  2017

Research through Design (RTD) conference  hosted at the National Museum of Scotland
22nd – 24th March, 2017
Collaboration with Larissa Pschetz
Edinburgh, Scotland 2017

The paper presented the process I went though and the issues I had to face when designing and exhibiting living organisms.

 

ABSTRACT

Recent advances in biology and intersecting areas of research have brought a renewed interest in engaging with living materials. BioDesign is becoming increasingly popular, and has included diverse proposals, ranging from products that incorporate microorganisms as new, often considered more sustainable materials, to speculations on future impact of synthetic biology. In this paper we present three objects that incorporate living organisms as a way to reflect on the design process. We discuss how engaging with living materials could be considered a shift in traditional design practices, and the challenges of integrating design in current biotechnology development.

 

 

 

The knife piece has been chosen as Provocation #1 during the Museum Panel session to discuss how do museums go about selecting which of today’s objects need to be preserved and why? How do they use these to map the lineage of our material culture, and how important are museum collections in giving rise to the new? What are the curatorial processes in place to achieve this? More precisely the role of the museum to ‘kill’ artefacts in order to collect or to keep artefacts alive.

 

 

From Twitter

 

Featured on ECA brochures

I realised that another of my projects was featured on the ECA courses brochures. It is the third time, and every time I have never been noticed, so I am glad I saw it by chance in one of the office 🙂 .

 

 

 

 

Biodesign Challenge

The Biodesign Challenge offers art and design students the opportunity to envision future applications of biotechnology.

This semester I am part of the teaching team of the Biodesign Challenge course at the School of Design – University of Edinburgh. We are part of this international competition, were master and undergrad students are going to develop projects involving biology concepts in group of 3/4 around the theme ‘Communication’. The course is lead by Larissa Pschetz and Bettina Nissen, Naomi Nakayama & Eric Thorand.

Picture by Larissa Pschetz
Picture by Larissa Pschetz
Picture by Larissa Pschetz

The Biodesign Challenge offers art and design students the opportunity to envision future applications of biotechnology in a competition that highlights student work. Our organizers connect classrooms with a team of biologists and experts to guide the students as they develop their ideas.

At the end of the semester, the winning teams are invited to New York City to showcase their designs in front of members the academic, industrial, and design communities at the Biodesign Summit in June 2016.

from Biodesign Challenge Website

Research Through Design 2017 Conference

I will be presenting the project ‘Design with Living Things’ (previously ‘Living with Living Things’) at the Research Through Design 2017 Conference hosted at the National Museum of Scotland (NMS) in Edinburgh between the 22nd and 24th of March 2017.

The paper especially written for the conference with Larissa Pschetz, will be available soon.

Abstract:

Recent advances in biology and intersecting areas of research have brought a renewed interest in engaging with living materials. BioDesign is becoming increasingly popular, and has included diverse proposals, ranging from products that incorporate microorganisms as new, often considered more sustainable materials, to speculations on future impact of synthetic biology. In this paper we present three objects that incorporate living organisms as a way to reflect on the design process. We discuss how engaging with living materials could be considered a shift in traditional design practices, and the challenges of integrating design in current biotechnology development.