Developing the universal design support system "YOU-base"

H. Aoki, M. Watanabe, A Hotta, Y. Ohara, T. Shimizu, S.Shoji

Generally, universal design has been defined as follows, "Design suited for all people irrespective of their age and ability".

The exhibits concern "YOU-base" , which is a design support tool and presents the underlying guideline/checklist of universal design. The purpose of the system is to provide support "during the process" for developing universal design.

The system presents referenced data used during the design process to make informed decisions that enable a universal approach to design. YOU-base carries out several solutions by reasoning through its neural network model and reverse reasoning of its neural network and genetic algorithm model. It means that the solution allows for ambiguity. Accordingly, these tools will enable the designer to draw decisions from guideline/checklist information.

Contact: Makoto Watanabe,
Department of Design and Architecture,
Faculty of Engineering, Chiba University, Japan.
E mail: mwa@design.ti.chiba-u.ac.jp

Collaborative integration of anew technology into the textile and apparel design process

James Robert Campbell, Jean Parsons and Mary Stieglitz

Current digital printing innovations offer vast potential for both direct and transfer printing on textiles, offering the industry and designers abundant options. How the technology is used, and design concepts are perceived in the industry, are areas of crucial importance to the technology's longevity. Due to the relatively high cost of specialized wide-format ink-jet printers, photographers and artists have had limited direct access to them for experimental/creative purposes. Campbell, Parsons and Stieglitz acquired an Encad 1500TX (60"wide) digital textile system for this research. The relative newness of this form of integrated high technology suggests increasing opportunity for designers and design collaboration. The creative work for the exhibit explores digital capture, conceptual development and surface application to fine art photography, wearable art, and textile design.

Contacts:

J.R. Campbell, Assistant Professor, Textiles and Clothing Department, 1073 LeBaron Hall, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011 E Mail: jrcamp@iastate.edu

Jean Parsons, PhD, Assistant Professor, Textiles and Clothing, Iowa State University. E Mail: jparsons@iastate.edu

Mary Stieglitz, PhD., Professor, Art and Design, Iowa State University E Mail: marys@iastate.edu

Quantifying the unquantifiable - The development of empirical techniques for the investigation of design perception.

Shane Crothers, R. B. Clarke and J.A.I Montgomery

This exhibit shows an approach to the investigation of design perception in order to develop concepts, theories and techniques for improving the effectiveness of design. It shows that participant-based perception experiments can be used to support intuitive understanding of design by allowing formal hypotheses to be formulated and tested under scientific conditions. This exhibition will show the development and application of an empirical method for assessing the perception of design character. It will showcase significant findings to date and discuss the practical implications of these findings. Presenting these research outcomes in context, supported by visual examples with which people can relate, should illustrate the potential value of this research.

Contact:

Shane Crothers, Research Officer, School of Electrical & Mechanical Engineering University of Ulster, Newtownabbey, Co Antrim, BT37 0QB, N Ireland SE.Crothers@ulster.ac.uk

R. B. Clarke, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer, School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, University of Ulster, Jordanstown, Newtownabbey, BT37 0QB, N. Ireland

J. A. I. Montgomery, Ph.D., Lecturer and Course Director, School of Art & Design, University of Ulster, York Street, Belfast, BT15 1ED, N. Ireland

The meaning and preference of color palettes among four cultures.

Youngsoon Park and Jiyoung Yoon

The exhibit shows the work done on a study that attempts to analyze the relationships between culture of a subject and the meaning and preference of color palettes, and to suggest the implications for the color planning of interior designers when they design for diverse culture. From the literature review these three hypotheses were developed.

HO1: There is a significant difference in the meaning of interior color palettes among English, Korean, Japanese, and United States subjects.

HO2: There is a significant difference in the meaning of color palettes between Eastern cultures(Korean and Japanese) and Western cultures(United States and English).

HO3: There is a significant difference in color palette preference among the four different cultures.

The findings show that there are preference differences between Eastern and Western cultures and differences among the individual cultures.

Contact:

Jiyoung Yoon, Ph.D. Professor, Department of Digital Design, Dongseo University, Busan, Korea, Email: klismos@chol.com)

Youngsoon Park, Ph.D. Professor,. Dept. of Housing & Design, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea. E-mail: ysyspark@yonsei.ac.kr

Producing double curved aluminium panels on concrete moulds by explosion forming.

Karel J. Vollers

The exhibit outlines an experimental study involving the milling of double curved surfaces on polystyrene foam and their usage to make concrete moulds. On the concrete moulds aluminum panels were produced by way of explosion forming. The panels were used as roof corner segments on a pavilion designed by Asymptote Architects, built at the Floriade in Hoofddorp in The Netherlands. The research team designed a production process in which various techniques were integrated and subsequently supervised production. The project is an example of research and practice in design and shows a research environment supported by market demand.

Contact:
Dr Karel J. Vollers
TU Delft, Blob &Technology group, Faculty of Architecture,
P.O. Box 5043, 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands phone **31-15 2784297
K.J.Vollers@bk.tudelft.nl

Collaborative virtual environments for architectural design research showing work in progress on the Casa del Littorio.

Jules Moloney

The use of 3D computer models to document works of architecture is reasonably well established in architectural education but there has been little impact on established modes of historical research in architecture. This may be a result of emphasis by researchers on the importance of drawings as the form of notation in which design intentions are best understood. Recent advances in collaborative virtual environments (CVE) allow the combination of such primary source material and 3D digital models in a manner that encourages collaborative exploration and interpretation. The School of Architecture at the University of Auckland has initiated a research program to explore the potential of CVE for design research.

The exhibition allows attendees to use beta software to evaluate work in progress on a project to model competition entries for the Casa del Littorio (Rome 1934 and 1937). Users are encouraged to enter comments within the CVE on both the software functionality and the research project. These will ideally generate discussion threads during the course of the exhibition.

Contact:
Jules Moloney
School of Architecture,
University of Auckland, Symonds St. Auckland, New.Zealand
j.moloney@auckland.ac.nz

A study on the characteristics of the interior design of large-sized apartments in Korea.

Jiyoung Yoon

Research has revealed that minimalism has been a main trend of Korean interior design including residential and commercial fields since the late 1990s and this trend was closely related to the characteristics of traditional Korean housing design. Minimalism is a term which comes from modern western art, but similar design exists in traditional Korean housing design, which can explain the recent trend in Korean interior design.

This exhibit outlines the study. It attempts 1) to analyze the design characteristics of the living rooms of large-sized apartments in Busan, Korea, which were and will be built since 2000. 2) to find out how minimalism is expressed in the living rooms, and 3) to reveal the relationships between the expression of minimalism and the traditional Korean housing design.

The findings of this study are expected to be helpful for the designers to get an insight for developing the traditional design and connecting it to modern interior design.

Contact:
Jiyoung Yoon
Email: klismos@chol.com)

Development of multimedia documentation for project '4D Lights'.

Matt Scone

This exhibit shows the use of multimedia as a way of communicating creative work done to an audience. The exhibition is of part of the work developed for a Masters degree project by Independent Study in '4D design, craft and multimedia' at De Montfort University, Leicester, UK.

An aim was to develop the use of multimedia and new technologies within existing craft and design practice. This resulted in an on-line exhibition on an experimental website, which was published to complement an exhibition at the City Art Gallery in Leicester, between 22nd August and 3rd Sept 2001

The website designed as part of the study enables the extension of the real exhibition to a geographically distant audience, and it is also a report on work. It gives an insight into ideas and aspirations, the process undertaken, and illustrates some outcomes of experimental work using different multimedia techniques. The website is currently under further development and the exhibition shows work in progress.

Contact:
Matt Scone,
Leicester, LE3 2BG UK.
Mattscone@hsbc.com

Cognitive Thresholds of Formal Styles.

Kuohsiang Chen and Tzong-You Chang

In the exhibition, a poster outlines how formal styles have been considered as effective marketing segmentation markers for differentiating various taste preferences among consumer groups. Kansei engineering research, focusing on mapping the relationships between consumers ' Kansei feelings and products ' formal elements, has become one of the hot research topics in design fields recently. However, how consumers differentiate one particular product form style from the other is still vaguely understood. Therefore, two major objectives were set in this study:(1) to search for and verify the range of cognitive thresholds for formal styles and (2) to construct a formal language for better describing formal styles, through scientific processes and techniques such as semantic differential analysis and fuzzy set theory.

Two experiments were set up in this study in order to carry out the objectives described above. The results showed:(1)the cognitive thresholds of formal style did exist;(2)the range of the cognitive thresholds of a formal style depended largely on its formal consistencies; and (3)the critical elements varied among different formal styles.

Contact:
K.Chen, National Yunlin University of Science & Technology, Taiwan. E Mail:
T-Y.Chang, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan. E Mail:

A general research tool for communication design.

Peter Storkerson

The exhibit complements a paper and includes a demonstration of an experimental protocol, which, it is believed, can be developed into a powerful tool for studying human responses to communications including retention, comprehension, interpretation and affect. It is based on cross-mode cognition using computer multimedia. This method is easy and inexpensive to implement. It can be extended and adapted to examine a broad range of design questions, yielding results that are directly applicable to specific design strategies and implementations. As a common platform, it can help build fabrics of integrated knowledge by providing a common analytical base that promotes commensurability of hypotheses and of data and technique across different experiments. Using this platform, experiments can be compared and data can be shared cross-experimentally.

Contact:
Peter Storkerson, Ph.D. Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology
6 Irving Place, Buffalo, New York, 14201, Tel-Fax 716 884 0579,
pstork@tiac.net.

Contract Research in Design

Anthony Crabbe

The exhibits complement a paper which reconsiders some of the activities that properly constitute design research, by focusing on case studies of contract research carried out by the Design Contract Research Unit at Nottingham Trent University.

A review of recent UK papers seeking to define the nature of design research suggests that a consensus is still some way off. Contract research, which is a professional research service undertaken for commissioning clients, poses further questions again, since a commercial service may amount to little more than jobbing work. The aims of the study where to identify the characteristics of contract research in design through particular examples and to consider how far such particulars assist the search for general consensus.

Contact: Anthony Crabbe ,
Leader, The Design Unit,
Nottingham Trent University, Burton St. Nottingham, NG1 4BU, UK
E Mail: anthony.crabbe@ntu.ac.uk