Let's Talk about .. Design Workshop

Today (October 31st, 2013), halloween day, there was the International Workshop Participatory Methods for Co-design Approach at Tokyo Institute of Technology. This workshop was organized by Assoc.Prof. Celine Mougenot (Department of Mechanical Sciences and Engineering) and Assoc.Prof. Naoya Abe (Department of International Development Engineering).

Due to my schedule, I can attend only the morning session. It was hands-on session called "Design Principles for Non-Designers" by Ms. Victoria Gerrard. She is an executive director of O(Opportunity)-Lab, SUTD-MIT International Design Center, Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore.

Ms. Victoria in hands-on session

She started with showing many products of banana leaf. I can understand many things related to design in that session. 

Design is understanding

First, "design is understanding". We should not be aggressive to the environment, but we should understand it. We can design although we do not know how it will be.

Who should design?

The answer is everyone. We can find design every where. Design can also be professional and universal. 

Learning from failure

Through the activity she asked us to design, we can learn that failure can be the lesson to have a good design. Many times we started with too complex idea, but it might not be OK to implement. Once we know failure, we can change, improve, or modify it.

Rich picture

It is another activity we tried. We drew our design which expressed something. I did my work as the disaster management rich picture as it is what I am interested in.

Discussion on our Rich Picture design

Although I cannot attend the full program, thank Ms. Victoria Gerrard, Assoc.Prof. Mougenor, Assoc.Prof. Abe, and all organizers for setting this workshop.