Each year a special topic is chosen to be discussed dealing with problems in the relationship of industrial design to other disciplines and problems regarding the theoretical aspects of industrial design itself. “Better City, Better Life” was the topic of the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai and Cumulus conference taking place in September 2010 [...]

This project is in collaboration with the elderly. It focuses on the co-design process at the front end of a design to generate ideas and concepts for wearable computing footwear solutions for elderly people during exercise. The emphasis is on sensor-enabled explorations that involve the elderly as participants in specific activities in the initial design process. I’ve documented my process through [...]

I visited Concordia for two different workshops in two different labs in Montreal. One was a electronics workshop, focusing on arduinos, sensors, lily pad and the like, with Elio, who also happened to be South African (From Johannesburg!) at S Labs.                     

June 2011- Felix Lorsignol (@florsignol) and myself visited the Blender Institute in Amsterdam. Blender has had open design projects for a while now, but it would be really nice to build on this tool for designers, specifically, Industrial Designers. Have a chat with Felix if you are interested in anything Blender related, and his upcoming project.

It was really shocking to me to see that they use temporary bathrooms made of plastic. I imagined that they would have a more sustainable system. These bathrooms have so many issues. None of the projects we are doing focus on bathroom, but I think that for now a sustainable garden may be a better [...]

A very interesting interview with Carol,  I know I promised to edit it for her, but I will have to do that later as the project seems to happening so fast. The volume is not very good, but you get an idea of the context and what would be of need. The quality of the [...]

We visited Kliptown once again on Thursday, I was in Soweto all weekend, so I have not had the time to write- no internet access. We talked to a lady named Carol, she is -extremely- passionate about what she is doing, for her community, she is willing to do anything to help her community in [...]

Although this was written one day prior, I must include it as it is important: One thing to remember about innovation is that it creates accessibility -now- . When we design a completely new system, that does not tak ein to account materials and context or cost, how is this new design any better than all the ones created [...]

Sometimes, I doubt the impact of design, specially when I am with the people talking to them about their problems, so many of their problems are economical, social and political, and when I feel like I am starting to doubt, I like to look at what others have done, just to remind myself that design [...]

I am trying to Prepare a presentation for the students tomorrow about “the user” and how the project must be user centered and how important it is to research and interview the users, the way they live (Lifestyle) and their culture etc etc. The students already have started something like this, we went to Kliptown [...]