Design ResearchPosted by Marieke Amalieh Bülow Wed, August 27, 2008 13:39:52"...Critical Design, or design that asks carefully crafted questions and makes us think, is just as difficult and just as important as design that solves problems and find answers..."
(Dune & Raby, 2001, p. 58)
I find this quote quite interesting, because it opens up to a new perspective within design and gives the designer a new purpose.
Design ResearchPosted by Marieke Amalieh Bülow Mon, August 18, 2008 12:09:24…is it then really a fact?
When I do research this question often comes to my mind. And how
important are these facts anyway? Of course fact are nice if you have
them right, but in my view the development of a concept is based on
your ability to compose new patterns based on the facts
but just as much on your intuition and your ability to put things
together in different ways. In my view the processing of facts creates
the concepts. Working with different projects I have experienced
different ways of balancing between the analysis and the process and of
course with more or less success. And it can be pretty hard to find the
fine balance where you do not spend too much time finding facts and
analyzing them or skip the facts and play only on intuition ending up
confused with no static material to grab on to when nothing makes
sense. Both ends of the spectra can be frustrating. So I always search for that middle way where the loose parts of a process are well supported by strong findings.
This is where design research excites me. The combination of a strong analysis and an intuitive process
that creates a strong foundation for a concept and in the end the
product/service, motivates me when working with design. As well I think
the diverse use of methods used in design research gives great
opportunity for various disciplines to work together in a
multi-disciplinary way overlapping each other’s competences and sharing
knowledge in a team.
Design research teams that are put together with different
competences from both design and other disciplines like ethnography and
marketing can create a very strong synergy and thereby create better
solutions with wider perspectives. To me the great challenge is to
make these multi-disciplinary teams to work together and everyone who
has worked in a team know, that this is not easy. Creating the synergy is for me the great challenge of design research.
Design ResearchPosted by Marieke Amalieh Bülow Mon, August 18, 2008 12:06:53
The day is getting closer, the day when I go back to school, finishing my master in Industrial Design. For over a year I have been working for different companies getting a lot of experience with Design Research. And I have to admit that I have been focusing more on the pre-phase of design and how the design processes can be used to innovate and create now conceptions service and product usability.
The challenge for me during the next two semesters at Designskolen Kolding will be to convince my institute to let me work intensively with service design and design processes and move focus from a physical product to a more intangible and conceptual product.
My wish is to work a lot with Design Research and show how this can be transformed into a product of better usability and greater value for the user.
I cannot wait to get on with work and I will try my best to document the process on this blog.
Apart from workPosted by Marieke Amalieh Bülow Thu, May 01, 2008 20:20:00If you have not experienced Hotel Fox yet...it about bloo.. time! Tjeck out the homepage here:
www.hotelfox.dkAs a treat i will give you a couple of photos, from inside...
You could wake up thinking you where in the wrong country! Or at least brought home the wrong date! (reg. refering to the goat!!)
Or maybe you caught just a whole lot of woman...
Maybe you just past out early...
I would like one of thoose in my room.
NewsPosted by Marieke Amalieh Bülow Thu, May 01, 2008 20:03:31Just
some pictures from a research trip with Kompan to Louisiana. I have not been
there since I was a kid and it was just wonderful and inspiring to be back
again. I had the pleasure of showing some American landscape architects around
as well and we had a lot of good discussions about Denmark and it always gives
you a lot to wonder about. Sometimes we think we are so clever!!!...as does the
Americans! :o) I feel very thankful to have met these wonderful people.
Some where a bit shocked about the room they got in Hotel Fox.
NewsPosted by Marieke Amalieh Bülow Thu, May 01, 2008 19:45:30Finally
I can tell people to go to my webpage for more information. Lovely...now I need
to write the information. As well as I need to start writing in this new blog
and not my old one.
Starting
a company was not part of my plans 6 months ago. But when a wise man, Michael
Laris, told me it would be very healthy for me and I would learn a lot during
this process I took the challenge.
So now i am running my company as a design
consultant and is currently very busy doing work for KOMPAN.
KOMPAN makes fantastic playgrounds and the
company swells with exiting people. Please check their website if you do not
already know their great product and the interesting research they do on
children and play.
www.kompan.com 
Smile...because it's worth it :o)
