Key projects
-
0-Carbon Building - Professor Ljubomir Jankovic
A byproduct of my work on simulation of development of cities is a project on digitally generated fractal patterns.
The CAArt algorithm, which I developed in Java, is based on cellular automata (CA), and it is based on a set of cells on a 500 x 500 rectangular grid governed by simple rules on a cell level. The simulation starts by randomly seeding a small number of cells, which gives a cell a specific colour. Each seeded cell then starts expanding into the neighbouring cells if these are unoccupied (have no colour assigned to them). If an occupied cell is detected in the neighbourhood of the expanding cell, that cell is preserved. Thus, radial expansion from the seeded cells leads to colliding patterns, called Voroni diagram.
The neighbourhood rules are based on so called Moore neighbourhood, where each expanding cell checks 8 cells around it. The colour change is achieved by independently cycling red, green and blue component from 0 to 255, either in forward or in reverse mode, and that achieves almost a water colour feel to some of the images. There are about 10 different rules for random seeding and colour change, which lead to different types of final images, or even animal pigmentation patterns. The initial random seeding of the canvas ensures that all generated images are unique.
-
CallingYou (RingerDeg) - Dr Alessio Malizia
Social interaction is essential for the mental health and general wellbeing of elderly people.
Information and communication technology (ICT) tools such as social media, gaming application, etc. have been developed to improve our social lives. However, older people struggle keeping their social lives active using these technologies and face the risks of feeling lonely and socially excluded. At the same time many of the previous contact points to other people, such as the local shop or bank office have disappeared.
Research has shown that there is significant correlation between loneliness and chronic conditions in elderly people and social interactions play an important role in reducing isolation. In this project, we try to address loneliness and social exclusion issues by introducing a smartphone application (app), CallingYou. A low fidelity prototype has been developed and tested with four elderly. The preliminary results show that CallingYou is easy to learn and use. The participants liked the app and think it would be beneficial for people who lack of social interactions.
-
Do Not Re-Cycle: Re-Purposing, Re-Using and Re-Thinking our Re-Cycling - John Beaufoy
Currently, 66% of all consumer packaging ends up in land-fill.
This project explores through research, design and making, if we can make better use of this material in its present state and questions current design and manufacturing paradigms along the way.
I collected 3 months worth of plastic packaging and designed and made useful household products from this waste material.
The aims were to examine the lifecycle of single use plastic, up-value the material and encouraging an emotional attachment by using craft and making, questioning how we could as designers view this material as a resource rather than waste. I created a series of lamps, lights and other products.
-
In Pursuit of Luxury Conference, Cape Town - Shaun Borstrock
The third international In Pursuit of Luxury conference was held in Cape Town, South Africa in March 2018 in collaboration with Yale School of Management.
This year’s theme focused on luxury, sustainability and waste with particular attention paid to manufacture, materials, branding , the luxury retail environment, technology and theoretical approaches to luxury.
The Keynote Speaker was the acclaimed design commentator Jessica Helfand who discussed social and cultural responsibility in relation to consumption, the notions of ethics and the impact luxury brands are having on the environment.
The conference explored the concept of luxury from a variety of academic and commercial perspectives. Delegates came from a global constituency and brought a correspondingly wide range of perspectives to the subject. The conference provided an interdisciplinary forum to examine the subject of luxury and delegates came from the disciplines of design, history, cultural studies, retail, architecture, business, manufacture, marketing and economics.
Within the conference we welcomed debate on what Luxury means on an individual, social and cultural level. Can this be enhanced through consumption, and if so how do we deal with materials in a way that aspires to zero environmental impact? The implications of circular economies, supply chains and a reassessment of the actual value of materials, were considered in the context of Luxury. Why for example, are diamonds more valuable than recycled plastic?
The 2018 conference provided a platform to examine and expand our understanding of luxury within the sustainable context.
Special Issue In Pursuit of Luxury Journal - Journal of Design, Business & Society published by Intellect
The first In Pursuit Of Luxury Special Issue of the Journal of Design, Business & Society published by Intellect and released in October 2018. The Journal of Design, Business & Society is a cross-disciplinary peer-reviewed scholarly journal that publishes high-quality academic papers that examine design from qualitative, quantitative, visual, or applied research perspectives. The IPOL Special Issue is edited by Veronica Manlow with the Foreword by Christopher Berry and papers by Papers by Fabian Faurholt Csaba And Else Skjold, Sue Thomas, Federica Carlotto And Simon O’Leary and Shaun Borstrock.
-
REBUS - Julian Lindley
Julian’s research is based around aspects of sustainability (particularly social sustainability) and design or more precisely the impact that design can have on creating sustainably futures. He has published and presented articles and papers on these subjects at a variety of International Conferences and in peer reviewed Journals.
Current work includes the REBUS project based in the Hertfordshire Business School (lead by Maurizio Catulli) which is investigating the feasibility of a Product Service System approach to the supply and use of baby products. Within this context he is working with Maurizio and Nick Reed (School of Humanities) exploring the value of Mass Customisation in matching consumer’s needs to expectations.
-
Ruthless Sensing - Silvio Carta
By nature, computers are instructed to duly compile with a set of instructions that programmers write and test.
The high level of sophistication that characterizes machine learning today make it possible for scripts to generate, once launched, actions of their own (cf. Paglen 2016). In combination with accurate sensing devices, programs are built to gather and analyze information from the environment they are in (Ramos et al. 2008), with the objective of learning from it. Through Internet of Things and ubiquitous computing, (IoT) computers constantly observe, listen to, and analyze human activities. How do these machines see the world? What do they really see? More importantly, what do they understand about our world?
This visual illustrates how a generic AI device sees the public space of a coffee shop in a generic working day morning, exchanging data with other computers. The complex and multi-faceted picture that we all would have in a similar situation is utterly blank to computers. This machine would start learning about the space it is in by sensing sounds, recognizing words, and thus inferring the nature of the relationships among people in the cafeteria. At the start, voices are isolated inputs within a space that is limited by the catchment area of the microphone.
From these, which are the only initial data available, the AI device will rapidly assign a unique number to each voice in the space, calculating its position and mutual distances. Analyzing the behavior of sound waves in the room (factoring echo, reverberation, and refraction time of the voices), the computer will calculate where walls, ceiling, and floor are. The AI is now able to assign a unique position to each voice (person) within the given space, generating an accurate physical description of the coffee shop. The AI will then start assigning attributes to each voice, inferring gender, age and language.
This initial profiling is possible through the comparison between the sensed data and comprehensive libraries hosted in the server to which the device is connected. The sensed data are then correlated with the information gathered through the other devices connected to the local Wi-Fi network in the coffee shop. The AI device is now able to compute an accurate profile where data from mobile phones, trackers and laptops are combined with the physical data sensed in the observed space. This visual shows the accurate, yet blunt picture that AI machines generate while watching humans in their daily activities. Whilst most of us think of AIs as aids that ease our daily routines, we should start to consider the fact that these machines are co-habiting our world. They continuously scan and analyze all inputs available to them, inferring activities, generating profiles, and returning a machine-based view of the world. In this word, we are simply predictable datasets, instrumental to a greater data analysis capability.
-
Social Disruption - Rich Mitchell
Social Disruption is an innovative exhibition that addresses the perils of excessive social media use in an emotive, engaging and sometimes playful way. Through a series of bold and uncompromising installations and printed materials, Social Disruption seeks to empower its audience with the knowledge to engage with social media in ways where they control it, rather than controlling them.
A feedback wall, which will be later turned into a book, encourages viewers to share their views on the rise of social media and its hyper-normalisation as an everyday - sometimes all day - activity.
-
Spacewear - Nicola DeMain
The research has been exploring clothing and its responses with respect to the wearer in microgravity.
Ongoing investigation of the different functional and aesthetic issues clothing designed for a weightlessness environment undergoes.
The larger project that exploring Design for Weightlessness has supported two multidisciplinary student led projects, that have exhibited at UH Arts and Bayfordbury Observatory and at the National Interplanetary Society Exhibition.
Working with R&D organisation BlueAbyss with expected student outcomes in 2019.
The project has won UH funding grant for new researchers that has supported the project to date.
-
The Not-so-secret vice: Menswear, masculinity and consumption online - Nathaniel Weiner
Nathaniel Weiner is currently in the final stage of his PhD research project The Not-so-secret vice: Menswear, masculinity and consumption online.
This project looks at the new kinds of mediated masculinities found in online menswear communities. It is based on an online ethnography of six of these communities and 51 in-depth-interviews with men who participate in them.
-
Bi-script typographic composition - Sahar Khajeh
Bi-script typefaces designed in styles that are aesthetically very different, and arguably incompatible.
The term ‘bi-script typographic composition’ has been coined to describe the coexistence of two distinct scripts like Latin and Arabic in which letterforms share very different visual forms and characteristics.
During this research, analysis of the contexts revealed the current lack of visual excellence in design quality of juxtaposed Latin and Arabic typefaces. The methodology was based on, first, analysis the characteristics of Arabic scripts, especially the ones that are significant to consider in juxtaposition to Latin Script. Secondly, provide standard terminologies to communicate about this context with a clear language. Furthermore, analyses the contexts in which Arabic and Latin scripts are juxtaposed based on a secondary research, and finally, conducting primary and secondary research to analysis both solo script Arabic typefaces and bi-script typefaces including Arabic and Latin scripts; in order to recognize the reasons for the lack of visual excellence in in design quality of juxtaposed Arabic and Latin scripts.
The result of analysis confirmed that four criteria play important role to achieve visual excellence in design quality of juxtaposed bi-script typographic compositions. First, achieve visual map between the anatomy of Latin and Arabic letterforms that requires a better understanding about the similarities and differences between the anatomy of Arabic and Latin letterforms. Secondly, considering the importance of legibility of letterforms and readability of typefaces, especially within a long text; which requires recognition of the optical disparities in typography system of Arabic and Latin script. Furthermore and most importantly, for using a special typeface, it is vital to consider the cultural background of the readers; and finally to create a new typeface the cultural background of the designer plays a significant role.
Unfortunately, sometimes simplification of Arabic script with the focus on mapping the visual form of Arabic and Latin letterforms, cause ignorance of optical disparities and readability within bi-script typefaces.
The lack of considering these criteria, especially in available bi-script typefaces within most useful devices like MacOS, Mojave, proves the necessity of creating a new agreed system of guidelines for juxtaposition of Latin and Arabic scripts, with special eye to consider the importance of all the four mentioned criteria. It benefits two groups: type designers - on how to create new bi-script typefaces which include Latin and Arabic scripts, and typographers, designers, and typesetters - on how to decide to select compatible solo-script typefaces among the available typefaces, to achieve a high-quality design layout in bi-script typographic composition.