Raising new opportunities for the Next Economy by exploring variable user needs for Computational Co-Design

Digital Fabrication promises to revolutionize manufacturing, bringing both economic, social and environmental benefits. Combined with Computational CoDesign it can raise the creative potential of both designers and users. However, today the productive use of Digital Fabrication and Computational Design requires significant effort and specialised know-how, so valorising these practices calls for the identification of the application fields that benefit the most from them. This paper presents a tool for helping the discovery of design opportunities across comprehensive, ramified lists of product categories, where designers can identify possible points of intervention. The web-based tool allows the rapid evaluation of numerous product categories according to an extendable set of factors and inspiring questions related to the necessity of personalization, aiming to stimulate designers to consider unexpected frontiers of innovation. Beyond the scope of the research project, this tool has the potential to assist designers in finding applications also for other emerging technologies in a structured and scalable wa

Materials, machines, meanings: Possible design strategies to compensate three key shortages of distributed manufacturing

This contribution starts by observing the low presence of “indie made”, distributed and digital fabrication based products in the everyday life of most people. We assume that this low presence is a result of limitations regarding the available physical behaviors, achievable functionalities, and accessible market, all of which can be optimized to the extreme with mass manufacturing. The paper explores possible design strategies to compensate these three key shortages of indie manufacturing for everyday life, aiming at better materials, more advanced functional “machines”, as well as alternative ways of creating meaning. To broaden the available material qualities, the discussed strategy is developing (and designing with) microstructures to simulate various materials. To enter more functional product domains, or machines, the paper suggests facilitating the integration of mass-produced functional elements (e.g. electronics) into product “shells”, realizable with distributed manufacturing. Finally, to compensate for limited distribution and marketing resources, we discuss the strategy of leaving the design project open for user interventions, focusing on the conceptual development of meaningful personalizable design. Regarding this latter, the paper also describes a design method and canvas tool, while the suggestions on materials/machines raise awareness around issues and upcoming solutions, contributing to some parts of the canvas.

Materials, machines, meanings: Possible design strategies to compensate three key shortages of distributed manufacturing

This contribution starts by observing the low presence of “indie made”, distributed and digital fabrication based products in the everyday life of most people. We assume that this low presence is a result of limitations regarding the available physical behaviors, achievable functionalities, and accessible market, all of which can be optimized to the extreme with mass manufacturing. The paper explores possible design strategies to compensate these three key shortages of indie manufacturing for everyday life, aiming at better materials, more advanced functional “machines”, as well as alternative ways of creating meaning. To broaden the available material qualities, the discussed strategy is developing (and designing with) microstructures to simulate various materials. To enter more functional product domains, or machines, the paper suggests facilitating the integration of mass-produced functional elements (e.g. electronics) into product “shells”, realizable with distributed manufacturing. Finally, to compensate for limited distribution and marketing resources, we discuss the strategy of leaving the design project open for user interventions, focusing on the conceptual development of meaningful personalizable design. Regarding this latter, the paper also describes a design method and canvas tool, while the suggestions on materials/machines raise awareness around issues and upcoming solutions, contributing to some parts of the canvas.

Tracing Design’s Value in Distributed Manufacturing

Today, much of “innovative” design tackles purely digital products or physical products extended by digital functionalities or connectivity. Meanwhile, the digital environment of the web deeply impacts the marketing—and increasingly the design process—of purely physical objects that surround our everyday life. The increasing technological maturity of digital fabrication tools has already established the conditions for a wider diffusion of distributed manufacturing, an ever more valid alternative to conventional manufacturing in many product categories. Distributed manufacturing promises a more direct connection between designer and consumer/maker. On the other hand, new challenges emerge around the management and monetization of the work done for an unforeseeable mass of consumers rather than a single business client. Observing recent trends in other creative industries, this paper outlines three possible scenarios for a stimulating compensation of designers: free, pay‐per‐download, and subscription‐based distribution of creative works. Beyond simple economic concepts, each of these scenarios operates on a different metaphor, requires a different kind of digital infrastructure, and offers a different kind of incentive to attract designers and their efforts. The contribution hopes to help identify possible strategies that might lead to sustainable business models of design for distributed manufacturing

Abacus. Un abaco di base - avanzati componenti universalmente stampabili [a 3D]

Oggi le emergenti tecnologie di fabbricazione additiva (stampa 3D) promettono di minimizzare gli sprechi di materiale e rendere possibile la produzione diffusa, ma la più diffusa stampa a filo (FDM) implica molte limitazioni geometriche, le quali spingono i designer a progettare oggetti tipicamente rigidi, con superfici poco interessanti sia funzionalmente che esteticamente. Il progetto mira a promuovere la diffusione della fabbricazione digitale come mezzo per la realizzazione di oggetti quotidiani. Per fare ciò, si stabilirà un abaco di morfologie e strutture parametriche, avanzate dal punto di vista funzionale ed estetico, ma anche facilmente riproducibili. La sperimentazione sarà un aspetto fondamentale del progetto: l’abaco verrà realizzato e analizzato in una pluralità di laboratori universitari e Fab Lab, per garantire la replicabilità dei risultati. L’esperienza e i modelli parametrici saranno documentati e condivisi su una piattaforma online, auspicabilmente stimolando la disciplina Design a considerare la produzione distribuita come un’alternativa valida, valorizzando le risorse produttive ormai molto diffuse e promuovendo l’economia sostenibile e la resilienza delle comunità creative locali

Post-Series Design: a tool for catalysing the diffusion of personalisable design.

Today a range of increasingly mainstream Digital Fabrication tools help designers not only in prototyping, but also in the production of final parts for consumer products. These hardware tools, while still have significant limitations, they already offer new levels of morphological freedom and logistical flexibility, which allows the efficient production of personalisable products – supposing advanced software tools of Parametric Design. However, since DF, PD and personalisation are still marginal, one may suspect that the Design profession has a shortage of adequate capabilities. Therefore, this contribution proposes a conceptual tool focused on valorising the previous hardware and software tools to achieve meaningfully personalisable products. The proposed canvas tool is structured specifically to facilitate opportunity identification and conceptual design, based on a set of key advantages (variabilities) derived from numerous case studies of existing personalisable products realised with DF. The new approach and tool have been experimented with a class of product design students, but it also aims to facilitate product development at enterprises, coherently with the emerging Industry 4.0 paradigm

Urban Manufacturing Policy Toolkit: strategie per la progettazione e produzione partecipata tra maker, designer, imprese e istituzioni

A seguito della diffusione dei makerspaces, oggi molte amministrazioni intendono valorizzarne tanto l’uso di nuovi strumenti quanto il fenomeno sociale per promuovere un modello di città resiliente. Il progetto europeo descritto si basa sul presupposto che sia necessario intervenire al livello di politiche locali per supportare le attività di progettazione e produzione diffusa, e propone un format che analizza l’ecosistema dei makerspaces in una città/regione, per poi formulare proposte operative a sostegno delle attività innovative di impatto economico-sociale. Tale toolkit viene applicato nelle 8 città europee del partenariato. Il contributo si focalizza sui risultati parziali ottenuti in uno dei territori coinvolti di cui si è indagato l’ecosistema maker. I risultati dell’indagine evidenziano che la già buona diffusione delle tecnologie va supportata da una altrettanto diffusa cultura di Design, come strumento di potenziamento di maker e cittadini come consumatori responsabili

Computational by design

The contemporary material culture—everyday objects surrounding us—is dominated by mass manufactured products, but Digital Fabrication together with Computational Design (also called generative or parametric design) promises a shift towards substantially personalizable products, in a relatively cost-effective way. Considering this shift an opportunity for designers, the book argues that in order to consolidate the practice of developing personalizable products, designers need to change their focus from convergent to divergent user needs and desires, leaving room for the creative contributions of the users in the design of their objects, thus converting them from simple users to (computational) co-designers. Albeit such “on-demand” products are still rare in the everyday environment, there are numerous appreciable examples, which led to the recognition of six recurring personalization principles—or user motivations—of both mechanical and cognitive nature. Based on these, the book proposes a design approach the systematic replicating the observed principles on any product typology, with the support of a new design tool: a canvas that guides the designer’s thinking towards product concepts to which personalization is essential. The proposed tool might help designers to spread personalisable design across many product categories, thus creating new business opportunities coherently with the recent development of the Industry 4.0 paradigm. On the long term, this might promote a more active role of the user in shaping the material culture, both through improving functionality and through new ways of creating meaning

Materials, machines, meanings: Possible design strategies to compensate three key shortages of distributed manufacturing

This contribution starts by observing the low presence of “indie made”, distributed and digital fabrication based products in the everyday life of most people. We assume that this low presence is a result of limitations regarding the available physical behaviors, achievable functionalities, and accessible market, all of which can be optimized to the extreme with mass manufacturing. The paper explores possible design strategies to compensate these three key shortages of indie manufacturing for everyday life, aiming at better materials, more advanced functional “machines”, as well as alternative ways of creating meaning. To broaden the available material qualities, the discussed strategy is developing (and designing with) microstructures to simulate various materials. To enter more functional product domains, or machines, the paper suggests facilitating the integration of mass-produced functional elements (e.g. electronics) into product “shells”, realizable with distributed manufacturing. Finally, to compensate for limited distribution and marketing resources, we discuss the strategy of leaving the design project open for user interventions, focusing on the conceptual development of meaningful personalisable design. Regarding this latter, the paper also describes a design method and canvas tool, while the suggestions on materials/machines raise awareness around issues and upcoming solutions, contributing to some parts of the canvas

Case studies: manifestations of Collective Intelligence in contemporary design practices

For long time, Collective Intelligence has been present in the act of creating artefacts for the everyday life, but ever since design became a profession, the collaborative nature of the design process is getting increasingly explicit. Information Technology can help both by raising the quality of the collaboration and by raising the quantity of collaborators. To understand better the nature of Collective Intelligence in Design, examples in four key topics has been selected (Health, Food, City, Work), each of which encourages different approaches. We will conclude by reflecting on the possible future roles of Collective Intelligence in Design