Present

User & Society (U&S)

 

User & Society has been central to my development as a designer since it shaped my way of addressing environmental and social issues and my approach to being inclusive and reflective. Previous projects such as ReBarking and the processes I went through in courses such as UME taught me to interact directly with 'users' through co-creation and material-driven experimentation. Noticing Fungi marked a turning point in my approach, as I was able to incorporate and utilize post-humanism and its accompanying theories to see non-human stakeholders as active participants. These experiences, coupled with my first approaches to the sea, helped me to broaden my perspective and move beyond creating abstract personas to designing for multispecies ecosystems.

​

As my Masters progressed, I used these insights to engage more deeply with the culture and different stakeholders of my projects and, by working directly on site and with farmers such as Adriaan Cornelisse, to develop adaptable habitat structures that respond to changes in the real-world environmental context based on integrated situated design methods. During my masters, I realized that in order to get a holistic picture of the situation, concepts like noticing and working on site, with and in the problem are extremely important to understand the processes and the context. U&S has shaped me as a designer and allowed me to balance empathy, inclusivity and tangible impact with my work while putting my finger on problems and addressing them.

 

Creativity & Aesthetics (C&A)

 

As one of the two core expertise areas, C&A has shaped how I utilize form, function and narrative within the design context. By utilizing material properties and transforming these properties into artifacts, as was the case in the ReBarking, Oyster Matter and UME projects, I have focused on creating a balance between conceptual depth and aesthetic appearance. The idea has always been to create informed artifacts by using the material properties to create evocative, meaningful encounters.

​

This focus on detail continued throughout the course of my FMP, designing the structures to be in harmony with the marine ecosystem while starting a dialog about environmental influences. Inspired by natural forms, iterative prototyping processes and visual storytelling were chosen to shape the balance between ecological function and aesthetic resonance. As a result, I learned a way of working that is a functional but also emotional and conceptual engagement.

 

Technology & Realization (T&R)

 

T&R has allowed me to bring my speculative approaches to life through hand-on experimentation and technical implementations. Early on in my studies, I worked on sustainable approaches to design implementations by experimenting with waste materials. This approach focuses on various methods of changing the properties of materials or using production methods in such a way that they work with non-traditional materials. There has been a particularly strong focus on creating tengible outcomes that have a certain function or purpose and at the same time offer new approaches to the use of materials. Taking the Oyster Matter project as an example, this refers to the transformation of oyster shells into materials for the creation of structures.

Following up on this, I have expanded my skills in this area by combining material-driven approaches with digital fabrication methods to enable modular construction through 3D printing. These methods have allowed me to create iterative and adaptive habitat structures from waste materials from the sea. T&R has been integral to my ability to bridge technical innovation and ecological sensitivity and translate my speculative approaches and ideas into functional designs with impact.

​

Math, Data & Computing (MDC)

 

With first approaches to the socio-critical use of game design (processing) based on a game about sharkfinning in the pre-master, I slowly approached the EA described here. At the beginning of the master, data exploration methods were applied in the field of material exploration, analyzing and interpreting feedback from participants thematically to inform design decisions. The Data-Enabled-Design course enhanced my ability to generate and utilize data as creative input and strengthened my understanding of product development and user experience.

​

I focused on analyzing, understanding and manipulating the code for the chosen digital fabrication methods so that I could make changes to specific segments of that code with the guidance of algorithms. By writing a script that is a single dimentional transfomer for G-code, I am able to scale parts of a G-code based on, for example, water temperatures. MDC is an EA that is rather sparse in my basic design processes, but still allows me to implement adaptive changes and the use of real-world data in my design. These approaches allow computational thinking to be incorporated into material- and system-driven design processes.

 

Business & Entrepreneurship (B&E)

​

B&E has taught me to balance creative exploration with practical consideration. This ensures that my design approaches are viable and impactful. At the beginning of my studies, courses on business models introduced me to tools such as the Business Model Canvas and the social enterprise framework as well as a basic focus was on the alignment of social values and economic sustainability. Projects with various stakeholders, such as Oyster Matter and most recently my FMP, emphasize my focus on cooperation with local industry and experts. This is accompanied by approaches as to how habitat structures could be integrated and what the intentions of the various stakeholders are. I also look at the scalability and feasibility of these concepts in a real-world context. B&E has enriched my ability to communicate added value with stakeholders and allows me to navigate interdisciplinary collaborations and thus initiate a meaningful societal and environmental impact with my work.