Design Scenarios for Water in India: DCC2008 ends with a bang

Image: The Kerala team and the Rajasthan team seen making their group presentations to the class

Design Scenarios for Water in India: DCC2008 ends with a bang
Each of the five groups made very interesting presentation of the numerous design opportunities that the groups had explored and decided to include in their presentation. As mentioned earlier each group had made an initial round of design opportunity capture using the small A5 size format provided and through these they had individually explored a wide range of design opportunities through the medium of small thumbnail sketches and a brief write-up that was appended below the sketch concept in the format that was provided. The groups then presented these explorations to the whole class and each of the groups had a chance to show and tell their design explorations and to get feedback from the class as a whole as well as from the teachers and visitors present. This stage is an important aspect of design since the feedback provided could either strengthen the individuals conviction or help redirect it to an area with greater promise of achieving a good result. This kind of discourse is an integral part of the design exploration journey and the use of sketches, words and texts as well as built models are all part to the process of dialogue and discourse that is inherent in the process of design.

All the groups then went back to their respective spaces and moved into the field to explore the concepts with experts in the field. This gave them a further opportunity to expand on their ideas as well as to clarify specific details that needed such clarification be it technical, operational or socio-economic in nature. The groups continued their research and exploration and then as a collective decided to focus on their next assignment which was the creation of a manual that could be used to sensitise the people of the specific region that had been assigned to each group. Based on this kind of expert input and on their continued imagination and articulation of the design opportunity that was identified by the group the final manual was structured and prepared for presentation and this brought the class to the final assignment that was an individual one, however the teams were still expected to interact and provide peer group supports to the individual by providing feedback and technical support in realizing the objective of preparing an individual scenario. The task as stated and set to the included the exploration and inploration of the concept of the chosen design opportunity with a time horizon of about 15 years through which the individual student was required to imaging all the possibilities as well as challenges that could be faced in realizing the said opportunity and through this process try and figure out ways to help the community or business realize the particular opportunity. The individual student explorations were submitted to the teachers after a gap of three days and since the class was to conclude the grades were decided and the pictures of all the A3 size sheets were placed on the NID server for being accessible to all the students in the class. Each student was photographed with their scenario offering and they had been asked to submit an email with a 200 word description of their individual scenario.

Some of the individual scenarios are shown here below along with the brief text that was provided by the student as part of their submission. I have chosen five such scenarios, one from each group to be shared here as an example of the scenario visualization assignment. These are listed below and are hyperlinked to the individual offering. Here below.

The five groups and the chosen individuals are linked here below:
1. Jasjyot Singh Hans : Northeast Hills: Design opportuinities for Water.
2. Aarti Srikant Lagvankar : Kerala Rainforest: Design opportunities for Water.
3. Kaveri Gopalakrishnan : Himalayayan Foothills: Design opportunities for Water.
4. Geetika Kejriwal : Desert Rajasthan: Design opportunities for Water.
5. Mitsu Shah : Coastal Maharashtra: Design opportunities for Water.