In March 2020 I was invited by Domus Academy, one of the most historic and prestigious postgraduate design school in Milan, to lead the Envisioning Workshop inside the Master in Product Design.
Titled “The New Normal – A new tool for COVID19 and after”, the workshop saw students from all over the world work remotely to envision the long term impact of the pandemic on the society, in a scenario spanning between 2025 and 2050, and design innovative systems and solutions for our transformed way of living.
Together with the assistance of Erika Baffico and the mentorship of Aoi Hasegawa, we embarked on a design journey that embraced many disciplines like design research, user analysis, scenario building, speculative design, and of course all the main phases of a product design development process.
The workshop covered the entire month of May and concluded with the definition of 9 conceptual projects. The very interesting results prompted Domus Academy to ask us to develop the projects further during the summer and have the students present them for their final career graduations, in September.
Here’s a summary of this very interesting journey and a presentation of some of the best projects realized.
01.
THE DOMUS ACADEMY BRIEF
The design request of the school for the workshop
User analysis template
Daily routine template
04.2
New Normal’s Innovation Landscape
The research and scenario phase, all together represented the definition of an incredibly rich landscape of opportunities for design. From health and medicine, to work, relationships and domestic environment, to food, fashion, mobility and the uban space, a “New Normal” means that basically every aspect of our life and society will change in the near or distant future, with new problems and needs waiting for the crucial contribution of design. With this important work, students were able to identify several market fields and innovation areas ready to be explored by the consequent elaboration of their concepts, products and solutions.
This chart connects the innovation trajectories proposed at the beginning of the workshop with several innovation sectors. It was provided to all students to help them identify areas of opportunity and intervention for their visions and projects.
This version above depicts the mapping of all case studies researched and presented within the first lecture, combined with all the major topics explored by students with their research and scenario work.
05.
INTERDISCIPLINARY & SPECULATIVE DESIGN
A lecture to expand the design perspectives on the New Normal
To expand the horizons of the project we prepared a lecture on what I consider the cornerstone of my approach to design: interdisciplinarity. We explored the relationship between artifacts, meaning and human beings. In today’s complex innovation scenario, there are no distinct boundaries between products, spaces, interfaces, services and communication channels, and this phenomenon will certainly grow in the future. Designers, therefore, must be prepared to expand their niche of specialization and learn to shape complex product ecosystems, that integrate multiple professional competences and touch multiple domains of reality.
05.1
Speculative design & future thinking
Furthermore I introduced the principles of speculative design and future thinking. This was key to shift the perspective into designing for a future timeframe.
There are many possible futures that can arise from the current crisis, with many challenges but even more opportunities ahead. Can we foresee how the pandemic will change our lives in the long run? Can our intervention shape the future of products, brands and also society? And how are we going to use the discipline design to get there? These are some of the questions that propelled the next concept design stage.
Future Cones, adapted and redesigned by Fabio Besti on the original by Joseph Voros and the most popular version of Dunne & Raby (Speculative Everything, The MIT Press, p.5).
This version adds the division between positive and negative, and take into consideration also dystopia and utopia, which are impossible scenarios, but at the same time are extremely powerful perspectives to elicit ideas, messages and societal change (the domains of disciplines like Critical Design).
ECHO, a system of products and services that are capable of analyzing the vital signs of the user and transmit a distress S.O.S message in order to protect the victims of abuse and prevent violent behaviour. Paired with the AI in the application it can also help analyze the user’s behaviour and help them to understand that they are in abusive relationships.
Aro is a futuristic product, designed to connect people in a deep, emotional way. The main goal of Aro is to provide emotional connection through the power of one of the more ancestral of the human senses: the smell. Aro is composed of mammalian olfactory sensors, and has ability to record, share and recall smells across the world in the form of electric signals.
Vioce is a 3D printable educational kit for young children, that complements the typical tactile, analogical elements of toys with digital tech and augmented reality features. The digital ecosystem comprises a mobile application that makes simple for parents or educators to accompany the young users in their educational journey, without disrupting their experiences.
Takomst is a portable educational assistance kit based on Holographic – Extended Reality technology. It’s made of 3 main components: the XR glasses, the ring controller and the holographic projector. In the future education will be a ubiquitous experience. With Takomst students will be able to study, collaborate and share knowledge anytime, everywhere.
Get in Touch is a high-tech installation space that allows physical and digital communication, while maintaining social distance, indoors and outdoors. It represents a new way to connect between different places around the world and express emotions through multiple behaviors and interfaces.
Wio is a new UAV delivery system, made of a drone with an extendable container. The propulsion system is based on ionic wind, a futuristic technology developed at MIT that guarantees energy without the use of propellers, drastically cutting noise and energy consumption. The delivery platform of WIO is designed to serve both B2C and C2C applications.
SIUU.AIR is a concept delivery drone thought to function both in air and underwater. Its cargo box is made of an expandable geometric structure, able to adapt to the size of the delivered goods. Due to future counterurbanization and change of consumers habits, system like SIUU could represent a new normal for the purchase and delivery and products.
Self-Driving Society
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