Home
 
P R O J E C T S

Future Workplace - Physics Lab in 2021
Exhibited at the Design Centre in Solingen

Development Work ( Presentation Slideshow is here )

Following a series of seminars around the theme of the workplace our early group research had the goal of predicting how the world will be in the year 2021. Once this future context was defined, mainly through literature and the work of futurologists, we collated our results in a research booklet and a "wall-map".
  Designing Out Waste (RSA)
  Wir Hier - Services (RSA)
  Sleep Scentsor - Insomnia
  > Classroom of the Future
  Dissertation - Well-Being
  Enable - Mobile Phone
S K I L L S  
A B O U T  M E Group Findings   "Wall -Map"
         
  Individual Research

I looked specifically at the area of education, and the teacher's / pupil's workplace because this is an area that interests me very much. My research was informed from 3 different areas:

1. First-hand observational research and interviews.
2. Literature written by educational futurists.
3. Reports about technologies and trends on the horizon.		 Interviewed Teachers
 
 
 
 
             
    Link to Mock Hologram Video   "We may see the national average teacher-pupil ratio approach 12:1 within a decade."
Source: K. Stevenson "Ten Educational Trends Shaping School Planning"

"...this has resulted in the advent of more project based learning and less lecture-style teaching."
Source: Prakash Nair "Strategies for Educational Reform"

"Holographic animated advertisments by 2008 - 2012"
Source: Ian Nield & Ian Pearson "The BT Technology Timeline"
             
    Present classroom
             
    An early concept was based on the principal of bringing the child to the world rather than vice versa. Called "Edubus", it allowed mobile applied learning within a "real" world environment by visiting different places and professionals everyday.
  Edubus sketch  
             
    Awkward layout   IT not integrated properly   Folders in window
             
   

The next stage was to carry out extensive observational research, so I spent two weeks at a secondary school sitting in on classes and conducting 45min interviews with the teachers and chatting with the pupils to gain as many perspectives as possible. I then combined the key factors from this research with my earlier findings regarding future educational trends and technology to select the main issues that I felt needed to be solved. After discussing my ideas and thoughts with the teachers and pupils we agreed that any attempt to solve the problems needed to work holistically so I decided to develop a completely new space including all of the objects within it. In order to do this I first created 3 personas based on the people I had met and their problems and then broke down these issues into 5 areas.
             
    Structure   Layout sketch
             
    Above is a rough image showing the structure of my approach to development.

The 5 areas are: Room / Space, Layout, Furniture, Storage, Technology / Teaching Tools and the relevant sub-problems within them.		     Temporary surface sketches
            Temporary surface sketches
    Seating   Temporary surface sketches
    Seating    
    Seating  
             
   

During the design process I worked closely together with two teachers and two pupils to see how they felt about the unfolding designs and any issues I may have overlooked. Here is some feedback from one of the two teachers regarding the final proposals:

"I think it is great: very imaginative and cleverly put together. The whole thing is a good filtration of what we talked about." Phil Austin

See the final presentation slideshow.
    Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License   Top of the page