Bottom-up grassroots innovation in transport: motivations, barriers and enablers

This article was published in the journal, Transportation Planning and Technology [© Taylor & Francis], available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03081060.2012.680820There is a growing phenomenon of ‘grassroots’ innovation, i.e. that triggered by individual users or communities (physical or virtual) seeking a solution to a personal or societal problem. This has great potential as a new source of sustainable transport innovations, but has been received little attention to date. This study conducted 16 in-depth interviews and a workshop with grassroots innovators in transport. A detailed thematic analysis of the interview data identified: catalysts for the idea and the motivation behind its pursuit; the barriers experienced (those that were overcome and those that were not); and the enablers that permitted the innovations to continue and to flourish. The paper concludes by identifying the conditions that need to exist for such innovations to be created, developed and exploited in order that their potential for increasing the sustainability of the transport system can be fulfilled

Creativity in design: The role of domain knowledge in designing

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Examples of educational practice: The esquisse

Industrial DesignIndustrial Design Engineerin

Voertuig

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Retail design: A new discipline

This paper has the aim to address Retail Design as a new research and education discipline that because of its multidisciplinarity asks for a holistic approach. Although retailing as commerce is timeless, Retail Design is one of the most challenging new fields of design, embracing both design disciplines of architecture, industrial design and communication design as well as social science disciplines such as environmental psychology, sociology, cultural anthropology and marketing/management. The term ‘retail design’ encompasses all aspects of the design of the physical store as well as, in a technological sense, a virtual store: ranging from store frontage, fascia and signage, through to the internal elements of equipment, merchandising, display, lighting, in-store communications, point of sale and finishes. Retail design also involves an understanding not only of what will work aesthetically within the space, but how it will perform functionally and commercially, how it can be built to budget and meet the many regulations governing the use of a public space. Retail design is the touch-point for responsibly developing and extending communications between brand and customer. In the world of retail, consumer experience has become the primary issue; the consumer’s journey through the shopping mall, the individual retail outlet or department store and internet store. It is the retail designer’s task to relate to and develop this experience through visual, spatial and communicative expression. Communication is the platform underlying and surrounding the spatial concept. A core issue for any business active in the retail sector must always be an empathic understanding of the culture of shoppingIndustrial DesignIndustrial Design Engineerin

Teaching conceptual design

This paper presents the first observational study of an ongoing research project. The research focuses on ‘teaching conceptual design’ and on the investigation of new teaching methods and strategies. Presently, in the commonly established educational setting, students practice the role of designing during design exercises while being tutored by a design teacher. In these circumstances, teacher and student interaction is of paramount importance. However, it is very difficult for teachers to effectively guide students during conceptual design, even though various ideageneration techniques are available. What's more, studies have centred mainly on the student, resulting in a lack of studies on the teacher's role. As such, we focused our pilot-study on the teacher's role as he interacts with a student during the conceptual design activity of a design project. The study was conducted in a real-class setting, with seventeen 2nd year design students. The observations were meant to be as unobtrusive as possible; we used a small audio-recorder to record the teacher/student conversations, and there were no direct interventions from the researcher. The audio recordings' content was then categorized and encoded in order to facilitate the data analysis. The analysis of the observations was highly fruitful. The model we developed for the analysis proved to be valuable and the results allow us to build upon what was done onto further empirical inquiry. In general, our findings indicate that this setting has potential to provide insight into the way design conceptualizing unfolds in an educational setting.Industrial DesignIndustrial Design Engineerin

Sustainable value chains for bamboo working communities: Integrating the tenets of sustainability through the Rhizome Approach

There is a growing demand globally for products which impact sustainability positively. Bamboo fulfills these criteria, since it is a highly renewable timber replacement material which does not cause deforestation. It simultaneously has the potential to create livelihood opportunities for both the urban and rural poor. The eco-friendly potential and image of bamboo has led to various designed sustainable products, which are made from industrially processed bamboo. Though this approach frees the product from common negative connotations associated with bamboo products, such as ‘low cost’, ‘rustic’ etc., actualizing these designs requires industrial production facilities. Consequently, bamboo producer communities are pushed lower in the value chains of these products. From being final stage producers, their role becomes limited to growing the raw material, and at the most primary processing of bamboo inputs. This focuses on the role of design as an enabler to achieve holistic sustainability in the bamboo value chain in general, and in the instance of the Kotwalia community in particular. There is a growing demand globally for products which impact sustainability positively. Bamboo fulfills these criteria, since it is a highly renewable timber replacement material which does not cause deforestation. It simultaneously has the potential to create livelihood opportunities for both the urban and rural poor. The eco-friendly potential and image of bamboo has led to various designed sustainable products, which are made from industrially processed bamboo. Though this approach frees the product from common negative connotations associated with bamboo products, such as ‘low cost’, ‘rustic’ etc., actualizing these designs requires industrial production facilities. Consequently, bamboo producer communities are pushed lower in the value chains of these products. From being final stage producers, their role becomes limited to growing the raw material, and at the most primary processing of bamboo inputs. This focuses on the role of design as an enabler to achieve holistic sustainability in the bamboo value chain in general, and in the instance of the Kotwalia community in particular.Industrial Design Engineerin