“To form a new strategy.”
The closing of last semester, at the end of January, was also the closing of the first phase of my research. That moment of pausing, looking back and looking ahead helped me to critically review my position towards the three topics I defined at the start of my research: spaces, technology (relating to the ‘living’ part of my research 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.
In a first attempt I decided on making space, using space and sentient space as possible research directions, and although these put more of the attention on ‘space’, these also did not give me the concrete direction I was looking for.
During a strategic session I tried to bring focus by moving my goal to “transforming a creative space into a ‘living’ space.” I expect that by showing how creative spaces can behave when they are ‘living’, designers from different disciplines (who may recognize these spaces) will be inspired by this and start to explore the possibilities more. This also makes me eager to make my own ideas more tangible by designing multiple concepts and prototypes of living spaces and by doing so trying to define what living spaces are. At the moment one idea for a final publication of this research is to design a maquette which showcases these concepts and prototypes and let’s you explore the different interactions.
The third topic shaping my research, in addition to creative spaces and living spaces, is what I call crossing disciplines. Because I think knowledge from multiple design disciplines will contribute to this type of design, I want to actively involve ‘these’ designers in my research and learn from them. By also introducing them to some of my own ideas and concepts I could gain feedback for following iterations and prototypes. This topic also includes mapping and / or showcasing existing designs and experiments from designers and studios already designing in a similar direction. Besides being inspiring, I think these existing prototypes and solutions also help shape the definition of a living space and thus frame (and substantiate) my own designs.
In short, the different activities and iterations during the next phase of my research will help me to (first) frame creative spaces, explore possible transformations of these spaces into ‘living’ spaces and discuss different perspectives from and with participants. During this I will continuously iterate on my definition (and possible models or framework) of living spaces. The sketch below shows the different iterations and possible relations.
[To be added: Illustration ‘three topics and planned iterations’]
To be clear, shortly after I re-strategized my research, I had to put things on hold due to the coronavirus 🦠 outbreak and the many extra work it entailed in my regular work. This also meant that I had to (and could) review most of my choices and planned activities. I have incorporated the changes into the overview above.
— Bram
Feature Image: Skyspace, artwork by James Turrel, Museum Voorlinden, photo by Antoine van Kaam https://www.voorlinden.nl/tentoonstelling/highlights/