Hello, World!

Hi! 👋🏻 Welcome at my research blog on ‘Living’ Spaces. Within this space I will collect all my explorations and findings as part of my design research towards ‘living’ spaces.

But first, let me quickly introduce myself. From an early age I have been interested in architecture and design. I love to see architects take the opportunity to design physical spaces that inspire and aesthetically enrich their surroundings, but never took this path myself. I became a different kind of designer, one with a focus on interaction design. Whether it is (digital) product design or service design, designing interactions for web or mobile, the challenges lie in designing (mostly virtual) spaces for people that move beyond the aesthetic to what is desirable, useful and easy to use.
In the past 6 years I also taught these subjects to my interaction design students at the HAN University of Applied Sciences.

Physical and virtual spaces are still often seen as two different worlds, but today’s technology provides us with more and more possibilities to blend the two. These hybrid spaces challenge the fields of architecture and interaction design to converge more and find each other.

As interaction designer I am eager to see if blending space and digital technology could help us move beyond screens and create opportunities for more aware and flexible spaces.

To get a more in-depth look at my starting point and contexts I would like to explore in this research, please read my research proposal.

Research Question and Approach

To guide my research I formulated my initial research question as follows:

— “How can I, as an interaction designer, design ‘living’ spaces for creative collaboration”

Within this question three topics became visible: spaces, technology (relating to the ‘living’ part of the question) and creative collaboration. Although the latter was initially used to frame the context, I feel it needs to move more to the background. Instead of letting creative collaboration dictate the direction in this research I am more interested in what a ‘living’ space is and what this could mean for possible interactions. So, instead of an approach on these three topics, I now choose making space, using space and sentient space as possible research directions.

Although a more specific research question has not yet been defined, it too is subject to reflection.

[To be added: Picture: new research trails and or projects]

My design research is following a double diamond approach. During the different phases I use sub-questions and iterations to explore, think, learn, discuss and make. In these iterations I work as much as possible with accessible, but relevant, participants, such as my direct colleagues and students. And because I also want to learn from architects, other interaction designers and studios who are already exploring the intersections between the two fields of expertise, I will look for ways to involve these experts as well.

The double diamond approach provides my research with an underlying structure for my iterations in four different phases.

The first phase mainly focussed on setting up the research, exploring different research methods and reflect on what they could bring to the research.

In the following iterations, I would like different participants to explore and discuss the concept of a ‘living’ space. I see methods like conversation piece, explorative prototyping and embodied design research play an important role in this.

By continuously exploring the intersections between making space, using space and sentient space, I hope to gain perspective and find opportunities for more aware and flexible spaces. Spaces that better meet our needs and support a sense of awareness and physical presence. Spaces that we can influence or that influence us, for example in our creative collaboration.
In addition I hope my research could bring insights, ideas and or approaches to the fields of architecture and interaction design.

Blog Structure and Wayfinding

I will use this virtual space to collect and share all of my designed methods, findings and reflections. Every post will start in the explorations category first. When more concrete trails are becoming visible, the posts will form collections about these specific subjects and can be found quickly in the top menu or sidebar’s category menu.

The three trails that I am currently curious about in my research are ‘making space’, ‘using space’ and ‘sentient space’.

[To be added: Illustration ‘from explorations to trails’]

Tags are used to make it easier to find specific topics and make connections visible. These tags ultimately form a set of key words that describe my research and will therefore be revised and adapted several times. You can find them in the sidebar’s tag menu.

I am also finding a lot of interesting resources like books, papers and projects by other designers or studio’s. For all reading related material I am in the process of setting up a post called ‘the book shelf’. Here you will find my collected books and papers together with a brief introduction or key words. Projects that I find will, for the time being, only be referred to in mappings and or individual posts, but I am playing with the idea of a monthly inspiration post.

I hope this set-up helps you to find your way through my research into ‘living’ spaces. For now, thank you for your interest and if you have any questions — or if you want to discuss any of these topics more directly — please don’t hesitate to reach out!

— Bram

Feature Image: LOOP New Media GmbH, Salzburg HQ Photo LOOP Agentur https://www.agentur-loop.com/about