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Workshop: Going Dutch for a Week
Master’s programs seminars and workshops
Here is a look back at the Master’s programs 2nd semester seminars and workshops. Objective: To reinforce their knowledge of project management, to gain knowledge in the specific field of their chosen subject, and to participate in design watch and research activities for a personal final degree project.
After a semester spent on a work placement or a study trip abroad, the 4th year students returned to their respective courses in February. Around forty students who had completed their undergraduate studies at L’École de design Nantes Atlantique or followed the parallel admission process (French or foreign students from other schools), joined the transcultural design programs in Shanghai and Bangalore. In Nantes there are about 100 students, divided among the different design programs on offer: Responsible Innovation, Mutations of the Built Environment, New Eating Habits, Virtual Reality, Tangible Interfaces and New Mobilities. During this semester, the teaching focuses on reinforcing their knowledge of project management and their professionalization (lessons on methodology, innovation, introduction to research, project-based learning centred on prospective research and projects with industrial or institutional partners). Each program includes workshops and seminars where the students gain knowledge in the specific field of their chosen subject, and participate in design watch and research activities for a personal final degree project which is developed in Year 2 of the Master’s program. They also have the opportunity to take part in laboratory activities which are organised in centres for innovation within L’École de design. The goal is to develop applied research for the design of innovative user-centred products and services.
Anthropology of food
One of the main themes of the New Eating Habits Master’s program and the laboratory for innovation and applied research is the study of representations (the role of imagination) and uses (ergonomics of social uses). The program is run by Jean-Patrick Péché, industrial designer.
In a seminar on anthropology of food led by David Morin Ulmann (sociologist and philosopher, and associate member of the lab), this year students had to work on the specific topic of "Slimness, femininity and youth". The theoretical contributions (individual and collective representations according to Durkheim, elements of cultural anthropology and the role of symbolism in eating habits) were used to generate reading reports and then as the basis for design proposals. This way of working is part of the multidisciplinary approach of design teaching that encourages interaction between theory and practice, and in particular, the integration of Social Sciences into the methodology and management of a project. Jean-Patrick Péché (the designer in charge of this program and director of the research laboratory for New Eating Habits) and Céline Gallen (associated member of the lab and also researcher in the food sector in the Economy and Management lab, IEMN-IAE at the Université de Nantes) are both involved in assessing the students’ work for this seminar. In addition, Jean-Patrick Péché runs a seminar which encourages students to use drawing to deal with design problems concerning user postures in different contexts: street food, the use of packaging for micro-wave ovens, etc. Innovative concepts or noteworthy improvements on existing solutions can lead to an extension allowing students to register the design or even take out a patent.
Design for all
The theme of "design for all" which has been taught for the last two years in the Mutations of the Built Environment Master’s program is also dealt with in a specific seminar. Florent Orsoni, director of the centre for innovation on "Sustainable Cities" and in charge of the program, took advantage of the competition organised by the Handigo agency (Xavier Berthet, town planner and Edouard Pastord, architect) and Atelier 0 Carbone (Emmanuel Dupont, architect) to get the students designing tools for creating inviting and convenient spaces. On the agenda: thinking up new layouts, lighting, signage etc. for the comfort of everyone, regardless of their handicap. From utopia to reality… it’s all about understanding the central role played by the designer!
Sustainable development: Bringing business and design thinking to develop sustainable business scenarios of tomorrow
(seminar in English)
Ben Walker, Head of the Responsible Innovation Master’s Program, recounts the last seminar organised in partnership with the Department of Economy, Law and Sustainable Development at ESCEM, Tours-Poitiers (School of business and management):
"In March this year, we ran a ‘Sustainable Scenarios’ workshop in collaboration with ESCEM, Tours. Building on the success of last year’s workshop built along the theme of ‘Trust’, we launched this year’s collaboration by posing the question ‘Do we really live in the 21st Century?’ We invited the Masters of Management students at ESCEM to join us at Nantes for an introduction and presentation of design from Jean Patrick Péché, while Fabrice Mauleon introduced the 20-strong Responsible Innovation students to the challenges of sustainability from a business point of view. The following week, we all travelled to Tours where we spent three days on the ESCEM campus, working in groups building sustainable business scenarios. We had the privilege of having Mr Niels Peter Flint join us for the workshop. As a designer and advocate of radical sustainable living, Niels challenged thinking and encouraged students to boldly design the scenarios of tomorrow. The productive workshop produced six interesting business scenarios – and a book, all of which will be available shortly on the sustainable-scenarios.com website".
Ben Walker, Head of the Responsible Innovation Master’s Program - Nantes
Fabrice Mauléon, Research Chair Holder for COMPETENCE 21 – Research Chair Holder for Microfinance PLANET FINANCE/ESCEM – Head of specialisation "Sustainable Management and Development”, 2nd Year Master’s course – ESCEM.
Niels Peter Flint, Founder of 02 Network, Designer and Radical Sustainability Advocate.
"Beyond Voxels"
Grégoire Cliquet, Director of READI laboratory (Applied Experimental Research in Interaction Design) and head of the Virtual Reality Master’s program (in partnership with Arts et Métiers ENSAM – Angers), explains the hidden meaning behind this poetic title:
"Voxels (or "Volumetric Pixel") are pixels enhanced with volumetric properties which enrich three-dimensional representations generated in real time. The aim of the seminar "Beyond Voxels" was to get students from the Virtual Reality Master’s program to explore the notion of "’immersion" in a virtual environment. The students proposed scenarios for experiments then modelled 3D environments and finally proceeded to their interfacing with the help of Bastien Bourinaud, developer of the "OpenSpace 3D" solution (http://www.openspace3d.com). Equipped with a pair of Vuzix/Wrap 1200VR glasses, a Kinect, a Wii remote and a balance board, the students were able to explore their respective environments "from the inside" and assess the key elements of an immersive experience. Although the quest for graphic realism plays an important role in the perception of immersion, when you are seeking to create immersive environments it is only one component. The real interest of Virtual Reality lies in the exploration of the stimulation of other types of sensory perception such as hearing, kinesthesia, etc".
Decoding the identity of a product, brand or service
The different methodological approaches taught at L’École de Design teach students how to carry out in-depth analyses of the contexts and to come up with innovative solutions… The students are generally very effective at finding new concepts. But the teaching staff have noticed another point that definitely needs more work: the search for a suitable and relevant aesthetic quality. This involves understanding the proportions of a product, the balance of volumes, finding a harmonious shape, the notion of the way light hits a volume, etc. This seminar, run by Christian Van Oost (car designer and consultant in design, head of the "New Mobilities" Master’s program), tries to steer more towards an analysis of a product’s style codes. It encourages students to examine every detail in order to observe and understand what constitutes the aesthetic quality of an object. After analysing a product and decoding its identity, the students endeavour to “recode” or transfer this identity onto another product taken from a completely different universe. This work is complemented by a sketching seminar to give them a view of the tools and codes of representation used in the big car design offices.
"Blobjects"
Literally, "blob" is short for "Binary Long Object" which defines a specific type of data (database). In a product design context, it also refers to the design of objects with curved forms.
The "Blobjects" seminar is intended for students on the Tangible Interfaces Master’s program (part of the READI lab), and supervised by Grégoire Cliquet and Thierry Lehmann. Its aim is to experiment with the hybridization of objects/information systems and to examine the meaning and uses of these "augmented" objects. Objects are "neutral" artefacts, capable of instantiating services according to a spatiotemporal context where user-defined rules represent the most important stage in the development of objects. The functional corpus and formal properties of these objects change according to the services which define them.
Pierrick Thébault is an interaction designer whose PHD (which he completed at Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs France) deals with the Internet of Things (IOT). This year he asked the students to tackle this question from the "design fiction" angle. The project was built around a contextualised user scenario which subsequently served as the basis for conceptualising innovative services. Around these services, the students imagined modes of interaction built on intuitiveness and naturalness, developing objects with a corpus which testified to this creative process: the material and architecture of the objects are modelled by these interactions and a new relationship is thus formed.
In the course of the seminar, organised in partnership with Telecom Bretagne, "mixed" groups of four students (designers-engineers) worked together on the definition of the triplet: form/interfaces/interactions. The proposed "design fiction" scenarios gave rise to five videos. The engineering students will then follow up the work by producing a specifications sheet with a view to prototyping one of the proposals. An excellent experience that was able to take place thanks to the 3-year partnership between Telecom Bretagne and L’École de design Nantes Atlantique.
Jocelyne Le Bœuf, Director of studies
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