Design Concepts & Concerns: Design Opportunities

Showing posts with label Design Opportunities. Show all posts

Sunday, September 13, 2009

DCC2009 Water Bangalore: Rivers, Lakes & Aquifers

Rivers and Streams, Lakes and Ponds, Aquifers and Wells: Flowing, Standing and Underground

Image: Composite view of three groups of Bangalore DCC students across three stages of their explorations of the theme of the course, Water – Riivers and Streams, Lakes and Ponds, Aquifers and Wells. Top row: Aquifers and wells, Middle row: Lakes and Ponds, Bottom row: Rivers and Streams

This was a very stimulating week for me at Bangalore with the wonderful weather and the daily rains in the evening time. I was also multitasking and working on my paper for the Istanbul Conference in October 2009 and I used the weekend to prepare my first draft and crystalise the research that had been going on over the past two months or so. The teams from the three disciplines at the NID Bangalore joined the course and there was a great deal of enthusiasm that was visible and all students participated with huge contributions both individual as well as collective. The results were visible and the theme of water across the three chosen areas of focus that was given to the students of DRE, DDE and IID at Bangalore were dealing with water on our land: Flowing, Standing and Underground

All three assignments were carried out with great enthusiasm and the results were remarkable. The groups explored the structure of the problem and started as usual with what they already knew in their lifetime of experience through a process of brainstorming and articulation followed by many iterations of discovering structure and finding the categories that could make sense of all the dimensions that the groups had identified. The second stage was very rich with expert interactions in the city of Bangalore and field visits to get first hand feel of the issues and perspectives in the domain of water and its uses and the effects on both environment and people. The third stage of building design opportunities was quite massive with each group producing over five hundred sketch concepts across many categories of action that they felt would be needed and could produce value. These were presented and the last assignment of individual development of one design opportunity for more detailed exploration and scenario visualization was taken up on the last day of the class. Seeing the 1500 thumbnail concepts of how water issues could be addressed with design was indeed stimulating and we need to capture these for further work in the days ahead. However I had to leave town for Jaipur on Friday morning to be with the IICD, Jaipur at their second convocation on the 12 September 2009. Back at NID Ahmedabad on Sunday morning I am awaiting the images from this visualization task at Bangalore and I am sure we will see 45 rich concept explorations that are both imaginative as well as rooted in practical realities that we all face today. I look forward to seeing the last stage soon with data feeds from my co-teachers at Bangalore, Nijoo Dubey and Priyanka Choudhary.

Prof M P Ranjan

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Modeling and Mapping: Finding Design Opportunities

Design Concepts & Concerns: Modeling and Mapping - Tools for Design Exploration and mapping Design Opportunities
Prof M P Ranjan

Image: The Karnataka group used a choreographed skit to tell their story of design opportunity explorations and shared their thumbnail explorations as well as the chosen scenario, both displayed as placards on their body. The front had the thumbs arranged, as a letter form while on their back was the scenario, which would be explained by their team adjacent member. This group missed categorizing the explored design opportunities using higher categories in their focus on the ideas created by the individual.

Design Opportunities can be felt but not seen since they are a product of the imagination that is triggered by a particular perception or insight and these are nurtured by the designers conviction till it can be manifested in the world through the process of visualization, construction and operation. I am therefore not surprised any more when policy makers and the public alike fail to see value in a particular design offering till it is almost fully realized and placed on the market as a compelling offering and at an attractive price with an appropriate set of features. Design offerings take on a particular form and these can be easily differentiated through both deep and - or superficial transformations and compositions which is a strategy that companies use to make a range of offerings to meet a variety of price points and an equally wide range of feature sets to make for an active market where none exists.

Image: The Tamilnadu group used a metaphor of a number of kites in the sky to map out broad areas of design opportunities in the fields of agriculture, industry, and fisheries and at the infrastructure and systems level of action. The thumbnail maps of the individual design opportunities were categorized and arranged along the string that held the kite in the sky and the developed scenarios came out of their group debates and identification of priorities. However most groups did not know much about agriculture and this was visible in the fewer design opportunities being identified for these sectors of collective ignorance, suggesting scope for additional research before these explorations are done once again.

The format for exploration was created earlier this year when the DCC course was offered to the Foundation class in the previous semester and over the past few months we have given this format to each batch of DCC students at Gandhinagar, Paldi and at Bangalore and the results have been very encouraging indeed. Group and individual explorations can be bridged by making the design exploration journey a shared experience by giving the peer group a place in the process of design opportunity mapping and this reinforces the process of exploration through the strengthening of the expression through a process of peer discourse and sharing that would otherwise have not been encouraged in a design class that may be project driven and one that involves individual exploration. Since the group has a shared agenda to realize the best design opportunities with the focus of a chosen theme along with a given bias, in this case the theme is Food and the bias for each group is the chosen State – Tamilnadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh – the process of articulation and choice making is both individual as well as group driven.

Image: The Andhra Pradesh group used the metaphor of the branching tree with its elaborate sets of deep and capillary roots, each part with a particular name, characteristic and attribute that mapped the real world attributes that the students found in their journey into the field during the previous assignment, The group was particularly successful in their exploration and as a group that were able to show a wide range of application areas and fairly developed scenarios for the particular design opportunities that came out of the group selection processes that they had adopted for their task.

Numerous thumbnail images are created on the format provided and each image is supported by a brief write up that describes the salient features of the design proposal or as we call it the design opportunity. These are discussed and debated within the group as they emerge from the hands and minds of the individual creator of the images and these then may go through a further transformation with the incorporation of the feedback that is so critical for the design journey to get a bearing that is akin to the potential responses in the market place. However the conviction levels of the designer would determine whether or not the suggested changes are carried out in full or in part, if at all. The insights that led the designer to make this particular offering may not be seen or be visible to his colleagues which sets up a platform for discourse and debate and these processes at an important part of the conviction building process in design when it comes to making a decision, in favour or against a particular offering or a part thereof, of that particular offering.

Image: Scenario visualization being shared by some of the students from each group as part of their final presentation of the DCC course at NID Bangalore campus.

Students then select one out of many potential directions that are revealed in their design opportunity mapping and this choice is done in consultation with the team members. Each student then sets out to develop his or her chosen design opportunity and in the process sets out to build a visualization in the form of a scenario that would help articulate the particular offering, its impediments and potentials, the business models that would need to be considered to make it a success in the face of known and anticipated competition as well as a host of other factors that would deal with material, function, aesthetics, economics and other meta level criteria such as current and future legislation and the ethics of the offering in the context of society, culture and the ecology in which it is to be manifested eventually. This complex offering applies to all kinds of design situations and the design student is taken through these in the classroom long before they came face to face with these complexities in the field in which they are required to act.

Prof M P Ranjan

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Incubating Design Opportunities: DCC2008 Paldi 01

… Design Concepts & Concerns…

Incubating Design Opportunities: Food, Inflation and the Economy: DCC2008 Paldi 01

Image: West Bengal team with their huge Sun icon and the design opportunity thumbnail images distributed along the categories identified by the Solar flares, each named in an appropriate manner.

After trailing all the other groups and getting sharp critiques from their peers in the first two assignments the WB team has come back strongly to make a clear statement showing a huge leap forward in their understanding as well as their articulation of all the design opportunities identified and sketched by the group members. The model and the visual presentation was very powerful indeed.

Image: Goa team with their radial model surrounded by all the thumbnail sketches of the design opportunities shown as a horizontal display with the viewers traveling around the model to look at it closely.

Goa team continued their effective radial model and they offered a modified structure and this time to accommodate the categories that they have identified for their numerous design opportunities for the theme of Food, Economy and Inflation with reference to their chosen region, Goa.

Image: Rajasthan team in front of their display of design opportunity maps that have been broadly categorized into areas of concern and value.

Rajasthan team used the broad categories of Ecology, Awareness, Culture and Economy to arrange all the design opportunities that the team members had articulated during the thumbnail brainstorming and exploration phase. They are seen holding their individual scenarios based on an agreed selection arrived at through peer review within the team.

Image: Uttarakhand team in front of their display of design opportunity thumbnails in the NID Foyer and they hold in their hand their individual scenario visualizations.

Rajasthan team had an interesting categorization of all the design opportunities that the team members had imagined and articulated. These were divided into broad categories through a process of sorting and categorization and they used the categories of Education, Food Preservation, Community Development, Industry, Water (Mineral), Transport and also a special category for Policy and Legislation that was also proposed.

Image: Detail of Goa model and design opportunity thumbnail sketches

… Design Concepts & Concerns…

Design Opportunities Presentation: Water, Sun, Hills and Desert

…>…Design Concepts & Concerns…

Design Opportunities Presentation: Water (Goa), Sun (West Bengal), Hills (Uttarakhand) and Desert (Rajasthan)

Image: Goa group took their radial model and modified it to accommodate all their design opportunity thumbnail sketches along the various categories identified by the group (Right) and the West Bengal group used the Sun as a metaphor to map out the various categories in which they arranged all their design opportunity thiumbnail sketches (Left).

The four groups dealing with the theme of Food in the four selected regions of India made their group presentations in the NID Foyer yesterday. Goa, West Bengal, Uttarakhand and Rajasthan were the areas of focus for this batch of DCC2008 which just concluded at Paldi and this gives us the platform to reflect on their offering during this course. Just as the Gandhinagar students had explored four other states of India these students gave us a glimpse of their imagimation for the issues and opportunities that they saw after their journey through the various stages of this course that included the exploration of the theme leading up to the development of design opportunity maps and then onto individual scenarios for one idea that they felt needed their full attention.

Image: The celebration at the end of the course with students and faculty bunched around the Goa model that was displayed on a group tables moved in from other rooms near the Foyer, impromptu but instantly effective.

The groups gathered at the Foyer at NID Paldi and each put up their design opportunity maps for all to see. The sky was overcast and the sun was almost gone but fortunately the lights in the foyer were discovered and this gave a renewed life to the presentations and we were able to photograph all the submissions and also record the individual scenarios which will be shared in another post after the groups have been discussed in some detail.

…>…Design Concepts & Concerns…

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Design Scenarios for Food Security: DCC2008 Gandhinagar

The four groups at Gandhinagar had a week to make their individual scenario visualisations that was based on the thumbnails that the groups had explored in the previous week in a visual brainstorming mode, each in a huddle in their respective studios or under the tree in the back of the mess block where Punjab group had located themselves.

Each of the groups are shown here as thumbnail images and a bigger image of the individual scenario will be posted when the group members find time to send me the email of the supporting text which is still awaited.
Click on each image below to get an enlarged view of the scenarios. Punjab:

Image: Punjab group and their individual scenarios for design action in India.

Image: Kerala group and their imagination for the way forward as individual scenarios visualised and shared with the class.

Image: Northeast group with their mountains of ideas culled into individual scenario visualisations based on their own convictions for the action going forward.

Image: Gujarat group with their real business like models for rapid deployment of food based scenarios based on their very rich model and exploration as a group.

The four groups in Paldi – Uttarakhand, Goa, West Bengal and Rajasthan – too will be working on their group thumbnail brainstorming and over the weekend on their individual scenario in consultation with their group members in a peer review and supported process, in other words with a little bit of help from their friends. We look forward to their presentation in the NID Paldi Foyer on Tuesday 12 August 2008 at 5.30 pm.

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Urban Farming

This striking image of urban agriculture is from Havana, Cuba. I read in an article that the only MacDonalds in Cuba is at the Guantánamo Bay naval base, which belongs to the US. Cubans on the other hand, enjoy a superior diet, with access to fresh nutritious fruits and vegetables, cereals herbs, etc They have an agricultural system which is largely self sufficient and does not depend on industial farming, pesticides or fertilizer, and is almost entirely organic. They also have a special food culture where communities of people farm together and are close to the production of their food.

How this came about is briefly something like this - following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, Cuba suddenly faced a severe food and energy shortage, since the economic support which included food subsidies, farm equipment, petroleum, pesticides and so on which it had enjoyed came to an end, leading to a period of great hardship.

With limited resources, no subsidies, no Soviet oil for tractors, fertilizer and pesticide, the government decided to prioritize food production, through substantial research and a search for affordable alternative farming techniques. These included many back to basics practices – vermiculture, natural composting, inter cropping, natural pesticides and bio fertilizers. In addition land was redistributed into small and large worker managed collectives, and farmer's markets opened to sell excess food crops.

By 2004, fifteen years later, 35,000 acres of urban gardens produced 3.4 million tons of food. In Havana which is home to 20% of the country's population, 90% of the city's fresh organic produce comes from local urban farms and gardens. The country is beginning to take on legendary status as a model for sustainable agriculture and local food production.

In Mumbai Dr Ramesh T. Doshi, has done pioneering work in developing techniques for terrace farming. On his 1200 sq.ft. terrace in Bandra he grows – lady’s finger, eggplant, leafy vegetables, coconut, pomegranate, chickoo, guava, spices and more. Dr Doshi is an economist by training, and spent many years marketing fertilizer. It was only after retirement at the age of 61, he began experimenting with farming – first at his farm near Pune, and subsequently on his terrace in Mumbai. Dr Doshi's agriculture is done he says using solar energy, only organic compost and pesticides, and controlled amounts of soil, water and labour. He does his planting in closed large diameter polyethylene bags or metal drums, this minimizes the need for water as little water is lost in evaporation or leached underground. He uses sugarcane waste from the local juice vendors and all the organic waste from the neighbours to make compost, through a patented process of rapid aerobic decomposition by thermophilic bacteria. Dr Doshi believes that urban community agriculture is a solution to the problems of collecting, transporting, and disposing urban waste besides of course the access to fresh nutritious food.

Dr Doshi has been sharing his farming practices through demonstrations and trainings. One of his students was Preeti Patil. She is the catering officer at the Mumbai Port Trust Central Kitchen where she has developed a terrace farm using the techniques she learnt. The Kitchen provides food to canteens in the Port Campus daily feeding about 3000 employees. All the waste generated in the kitchen is used in the terrace garden, and all the produce which includes tomatoes, gourds, brinjal, radish, spinach, guava, chikoo, pomegranate, lemon and even cherries is used in the kitchen. She is now working on a project to teach these farming techniques to street children in Mumbai.

All over the world there have been long traditions of farming intensively within and at the edge of cities. Over the last century, with the industrial farming revolution needing large tracts of land, farms have moved further and further away from the city. With the spiraling costs of food and fuel for transportation, coupled with concerns about food security in a rapidly urbanizing world and a widespread appreciation of the superiority of organic over industrial produce, - urban farming is being re-looked at as a possible answer.

Several interesting initiatives along these lines are afoot -

http://www.fallenfruit.org/index.html

http://archinect.com/features/article.php?id=50581_0_23_0_C

http://www.lfa2008.org/event.php?id=57&name=GrowBags:UrbanAllotments

http://www.dott07.com/go/food/urban-farming

Saturday, August 2, 2008

Incubating Design Opportunities: DCC2008 Gandhinagar

Image: Team Punjab with their presentation of design opportunity thumbnails and scenarios on the theme of Food.

The week long incubation period for the exploration of design opportunities that the four groups of students had discovered came to an end today with the final review and presentation of the groups work at the NID Gandhinagar campus. Each group had explored various design opportunities using the format for thumbnail sketches and a brief outline and these were discussed at length within each group to look for value and limitations in each of these explored options. This process of articulation and review continued through the week although the class had got over by last Friday when the groups had captured many such illustrations that gave us a glimpse of what was in the minds of the individuals who had drawn them after a process of collective exploration, brainstorming and engagement with experts in the field using anthro-research approaches to clarify directions and define specific insights that could produce value.

Image: Team Kerala with design oppportunity scenarios.

The enthusiasm and committment of the groups resulted in as many as 500 individual design opportunity maps and these were arranged into categories by the teams and some new explorations were initiated on the basis of the insights that were drawn from the initial explorations and the results thereof. THis group was particularly enthused by the design opportunities discovered and the final presentations were a trace of this enthusiasm, and the teams were all present for the final review. Each group has been requested to make a scanned image file of each thumbnail sheet and share these with all the other groups and during the interaction session this evening at Gandhinagar we photographed all the students with their Design Opportunity Scenario sheet with a final request that they send in an email with a brief but effective textual description of their design opportunity scenario to the teachers. These textual notes would also be made available to all students through the NID server at gandhinagar just as the pictures would be shared with all students as part of the contemporaneous documentation of this course.

Image: Team Gujarat with their radial model of design opportunity thumbnails in a categorised map.

Image: Team Northeast with their offering after the incubation period of one week.

Each of these explorations will be shared in some detail in the days ahead as the emailed texts come in to supplement the scenario visualisations made by the students of all four teams.

Gandhinagar in the Rain: DCC2008 Presentation

Image: Final presentation of Design Opportunity explorations by all four groups in the NID Gandhinagar Atrium.

The vehicle fiasco did come to our aid today in making a change of venue and an impromptu rescheduliong of our presentation to Gandhinagar campus and all the students were stranded at Gandhinagar and both the busses were parked at Paldi and the driver had a day off being a Saturday!! The student coordinators forgot to inform the Admin about our presentation and then we had phone calls at my office in Paldi at 10.00 am the time when the presentation was planned when we last met at Gandhinagar one week ago.

Since the final presentation is an important part of the process of learning design thinking the teachers who had assembled at my office decided that we would go over to Gandhinagar for which we requested a car after many phone calls to Gandhinagar and the Paldi administrators. Harini, Ayan, Anindya and I left Rashmi behind since she could not accompany us to Gandhinagar, a big loss for the styudents since her feedback would have been very insightful and sensitive. We are now at Gandhinagar and the presentation will start at 2.00 pm and we have requested all the students to be ready with their groups as well as with their individual design opportunities so that the show and tell session can be organised in a way that the learning can be complete. Each student is also required to send us a brief note by email about the story in their Design Scenario Visualisation so that some of these could be posted on the blog for all to see and discuss further possibilities.

We are eager to see what the students have done so far and I was hoping that the Paldi students could also see what the Gandhinagar colleagues had achieved in their exploration of the DCC Theme, FOOD, Inflation and the Economy, each dealing with a selected area of the country, Kerala, Uttarakhand, Punjab and Gujarat. With one week given for imcubation and group discussion we are sure that we will get to see a rich exploration of various dimensions of the chosen theme and I do personally look forward to the afternoon session, planned after the lunch break in a few minutes from now.

We drove in the rain from Paldi to Gandhinagar and on Ashram Road the traffic was pretty heavy and with the light drizzle the humidity was high and the temperature very uncomfortable particularly since the aircon system seemed to malfunction, but later towards Gandhinagar the weather turned and more rain came down and with the driving speed we had a good airflow through the windows but with some degree of wettness due to the spray. On the whole a good ride and since we were eager to meet the students some discomfort is acceptable. The rain is all around and the presentation is planned in the main building in the central Atrium that will start in another twenty minutes from now.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Reflections on DCC2008: Priyadarshinee Mohapatra

Image: Model of the Design Process proposed by Priyadarshinee Mohapatra and sent to me by email along with a description of the model that is quoted below.

Design is complex and challenging, as it involves both analytic and creative solution to a problem. Designing a product, not only requires a designer, but also needs the understanding of human experience on it. It's a task involving not only the designer but also the target users for whom it's designed. For any design solution it's important to follow the design process which is an iterative process. Design concepts and concerns-2008 by MP Ranjan has taught the "design process" in a very effective and planned manner. It's a wonderful experience to be part of this programme. It has a clear path/process from "recollecting the known" to "discover the unknown" and finally "creating design opportunity" while solving the problems in a given context.

What you already know:

In the first level, it's basically "recollecting the data already exist in your mind". It's self exploration phase. So the information is collected from every individual based on "self knowledge" and "on what he/she believes in". It's followed by group brain storming to make it more precise and determine the information architecture, structuring and reflecting the same on a visual metaphor. A visual metaphor gives a complete overview of the context. A strong visual metaphor is self explanatory.

Initially, though the group had less information, eventually the information was created by self exploration and group brain storming. Truly said by Ranjan "You never know what you know and you can challenge any modern age computer".

Discover the unknown through research:

The next level, we had to "discover the unknown" through research and field study. During this phase we were exposed to real world to know and find out information. Finally, we incorporated all the information on structure and metaphor. The collected insights give a complete idea about the real world problem. It helped us to create personas and to understand the common man's mental model about the context. From insights, one could make out "What is already there?"and "what could be done?"

Creating design opportunity:

Finally design opportunities created by analysing the observations and insights from field research in the given context while solving the problems. The issues were pointed out in a group brain storming. From various ideas, every individual has to take one idea or design opportunity and give a detailed solution to the real world problem. The solution has to be presented visually to make it self-explanatory.
I worked in Gujarat group. My learning through the whole process was a lot .It was not limited to my own group only, I also learnt a lot from other groups as well.

Thanks & Regards

Priyadarshinee Mohapatra
Strategic Design Management (SDM)

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Design Opportunity Mapping by Groups at Gandhinagar

Image: Views from the group sessions at Gandhinagar on the last day of the course.

The four groups have gone into a huddle to develop and visualize Design Opportunities across all the categories that they have identified as areas of need and value. This is being done by the members sitting together to visualize each opportunity that comes to their mind on the format that was provided for the purpose. On an A4 size sheet we have four quadrants where the students can draw and write briefly about what was visible in their inner eye and their imagination.

The groups would continue to explore the possibilities as they come up in their conversations, visualisations and debates about priorities and possibilities in the context of India today and tomorrow. From the several hundred design opportunities that we expect to emerge from each group the students are expected to categorise these into meaningful groups so that these could be discussed and evaluated in some depth. From the set of thumbnails that emerge from this stage of group processing each student is expected to select one that they would like to explore and elaborate into a more developed scenario.

Image: Views from the group sessions at Gandhinagar on the last day of the course.

This scenario visualization would need some time for the incubation of the thoughts and images so that both the form and the structure of the specific design opportunity could be developed in some depth and through this process the individual student is encouraged to keep in active discussion with peers for their feedback and encouragement. Like an entrepreneur each student would examine all the dimensions of the design opportunity and then prepare a composite image on an A3 size sheet of paper that could tell the story that has unfolded through this process of imagination and articulation.

Image: Format for group capture of design opportunities and one case study from the Punjab Group.

These individual scenarios as well as the group’s categorized thumbnail sketches would be reviewed by the whole class on the next Saturday at NID, Paldi campus with all students being present for discussion and a photo session for reporting the final outcomes to the blog members at large.

Saturday, April 19, 2008

More Design Opportunities Visualised: DCC 2008 scenarios

Image: Thumbnails of several water based scenarios prepared by the DCC2008 class at NID. They are shown below individually at the links listed here below.

Image: Six pages from a 20 page manual prepared by the Desert Rajasthan team as part of their group assignment The group work Design Opportunity Manuals are now available at this site. You can download the PDF files at the links below:
Desert Rajasthan Manual: 20 page pdf 6.1 mb size.
Kerala Rainforest Manual: 26 pages pdf 4.8 mb size.
Northeast Hills Manual: 12 pages pdf 3.5 mb size

More Design Opportunities: DCC 2008
Here is the second batch of scenarios that emerged from the students of the five regional groups, all working on water based design opportunities for the five assigned geographic regions of India, namely, Northeast Hills, Kerala Rainforest, Himalayan Foothills, Desert Rajasthan and Coastal Maharashtra. They are listed below and hyperlinked to the image and email text that was provided by each of the students selected here.

<Items 1 to 5 can be accessed from this link here.

Pragya Singh : Design Opportunities Water (Team – Northeast Hills)

Pragya Singh : Design Opportunities Water (Team – Northeast Hills)

During heavy rainfalls in NORTH EASTERN hills faces flash floods in urban upstream n soil erosion in rural downstream. Winters are dry which leads to lesser cultivation. Since both the rural and the urban areas are dependent hydrologically, I conceptualized integrated management system.

This system consists of many interlinked small watersheds (partly underground) at different levels of the hill to collect rainwater. Grooves are dug along the contours at different levels, which are open and directed towards respective community tanks (every individual house has its own simple rain water harvesting system comprising of a small above ground tank which collects clean roof water for drinking).

During heavy rains we can capture a large amount of water, which can be useful during dry winters for irrigation and domestic uses. During winters water can be pumped up during winters, since the tanks are interlinked....

Planned n thick cultivation (specially above the grooves) to help control soil erosion...
SINCE it’s a complicated n huge system plan, there will be many important considerations and required procedures to make it practically possible.

Firstly, I myself need to be well acquainted with knowledge of north east India n water structure over there...this can b done by research n social interactions.

Secondly, this is not a one man task ...it will need support n direction from experienced n enthusiastic people...to work it up as a team...

Thirdly, field study, environmental perception by directly going to the field is very important ...to identify the problems n find the best possible solutions. By interacting with the field...

Fourthly, proper planning.problem solving, plan considering all minute aspects of design ... like cost effectivness. Resource access, needs n mental build up of people there ...etc.

Fifthly, once we r ready with the plan.we need funds in addition to engineers, transport facilities, labour force, etc to actually make it possible...this could be done by approaching n convincing big influencial people in governmental n non govt. organisation.s.

Sixthly, spreading awareness by promotion, education, n proper expression.... so that we can properly convince the local populations to accept this system ...n its application

This could be done with the help of common awareness methods like internet, television, comic books, poster s... news channel, targeting students ... etc....

AFTER 15 YEARS I see a huge green hill (which is green even in winters).... and a flood free Northeast India..., which doesn’t need to go 1 mile downstream to get water...!!

Pragya Singh : Design Opportunities Water (Team – Northeast Hills)

Abu Basim : Design Opportunities Water (Team – Northeast Hills)

Abu Basim : Design Opportunities Water (Team – Northeast Hills)

Text not yet submitted. Text and picture will be uploaded later when the bandwidth is better.

Abu Basim : Design Opportunities Water (Team – Northeast Hills)

Rohit Goyal : Design Opportunities Water (Team – Northeast Hills)

Rohit Goyal : Design Opportunities Water (Team – Northeast Hills)

NORTH-EASTERN HILLS
DESIGN OPPORTUNITY OF MANUFACTURING WATERPROOF ACCESSORIES.

AS WE KNOW THAT WATER IS AN IMPORTANAT RESOURCE OF LIFE AND NEED TO PRESERVE IT CAREFULL, WE STUDIED THE DIFFERENT METHODS AND APPLICATION OF WATER HARVESTING IN NORTH EASTERN HILLS. AFTER A LONG JOURNEY OF STUDYING WATER FROM DIFFERENT PESPECTIVE AND COMING UP WITH DESIGN OPPORTUNITIES IN OUR AREA IN LAST ASSIGNMENT I DECIDED TO STUDY MY DESIGN OPPORTUNITY OF MAKING SCHOOL BAGES WITH INFORMATIVE GRAPHIC RELATED TO WATER ISSUE I MEET AND TALKED TO LOT OF EXPERTS AND CONSUMERS. WHEN I TOOK MY PRODUCT TO MARKET THE FEEDBACK, WHICH I GOT, WAS GOOD THAN EXPECTATIONS. SO I THOUGHT WHY NOT THE PRODUCT SHOULD BE CARRIED FURTHER.

SO I DREAMED OF OPENING A FACTORY OF WATERPROOF ACCESSORIES LIKE SCHOOL, OFFICE, COLLEGE BAGS, RAIN COATS JACKETS, CAR ACCESSORIES ETC IN INDUSTRIAL AREA OF GUWAHATI, ASSAM MAY BE AFTER 15YEARS FROM NOW.
I STUDIED IN DETAIL OF OPENING A FACTORY AND CAME UP WITH FUTHURE ME BOARD.

EXPLANING ABOUT ME BOARD, ON EXTREM RIGHT OF SHEET WE CAN SEE THE MAP OF CHINA FROM WHERE THE RAW MATERIAL LIKE NYLON SHEETS, PVC SHEETS, REXGINE SHEETS ETC WOULD BE IMPORTING BY FACTORY BECAUSE OF CHEAP RATES AND GOOD QUALITY.NEXT TO IT IS THE PICTURE OF FACTORY WHERE RECYCLING PLANT OF FACTORY USED WATER IS ALSO SHOWN BY WHICH WATER CAN BE REUSED BY KEEPING ENVORNIMENT CLEAN. ON THE ROOF OF FACTORY WE CAN SEE SOLAR PANELS WHICH CAN BE USED FOR GENRATING HOT WATER AND ELECTRCITY WHICH IS USED ON LARGE SCALE IN INDUSTRY FOR DIFFERENT PURPOSE. BELOW INDUSTRY THERE IS A PICTURE OF INSTUTIONS FROM WHERE THE BEST DESIGNER AND EMPLOYERS WOULD BE TAKEN. ON RIGHT OF IT WE CAN SEE A PICTURE OF MULTI-NATIONAL BUILDING, WHICH WOULD BE THE OFFICE OF FACTORY IN COMMERCIAL AREA OF GUWAHATI OR DELHI. THE PICTURE OF TRUCK SHOWS THAT THE PRODUCTS WILL NOT ONLY TARGETED TO NORTH EASTERN ZONE BUT HOLE OF COUNTRY TO THE NEBIOURING COUNTRIES.

ON THE LEFT SIDE OF SHEET THERE IS WHOLE BUSSINESS MODEL REQUIRED TO SET UP INDUSTRY, WHICH WAS INSPIRED BY THE BUSSINESS MODEL OF ANDAWALA.

BESIDE THIS FACTS I THOUGHT OF NAMING INDUSTRY HAS GOYAL INDUSTRY PVT. LTD. GUWAHATI. ASSAM. AND ALSO OPENING OF EXCLUSIVE SHOWROOM OF INDUSTRIAL MADE WATERPROOF ACCESSORIES IN MAJOR CITIES OF INDIA.

Rohit Goyal : (Team – Northeast Hills)

Kabini Amin : Design Opportunities Water (Team – Kerala Rainforest)

Kabini Amin : Design Opportunities Water (Team – Kerala Rainforest)

My visualisation, 15 years from now :

I imagine having started a magazine for youth that deals with issues like water, environmental degradation etc. Teen-targeted publications normally deal with film stars and random gossip. Also a large section of people are moving towards urban areas, where life is seemingly comfortable, and are thus unaware of the rural realities.

I personally think the youth is the strongest asset a country has. Unfortunately in our country, people aren’t considered capable of making decisions until they are well into their 30’s, an age at which they are so part of this larger system that all creative thinking has been suppressed. The youth in the country (in this case Kerala) should be mobilised and sensitised towards making some kind of change. With the magazine I hope to create a new system.

I would begin this by studying the functioning’s of popular youth magazines, by targeting readers, advertising and increasing popularity.

I remember always wanting to act proactively in the society and wanting to help resolve environmental issues, but never knowing how. I wish to inform like-minded people about steps they could take in this direction.

After weighing out all the possibilities, I found that this design opportunity was the most feasible and at the same time the most powerful. When the state/country has an empowered and informed youth, then it is truly a rich land.

This idea may not be exclusive to Kerala, but has the advantage of being flexible so that it can be adapted to any place.

Kabini Amin : (Team – Kerala Rainforest)
P.S. all this would apply if 15 years from now the state of Kerala still exists even after the effects of climate change.

Abhijit K R: Design Opportunities Water (Team – Kerala Rainforest)

Abhijit K R: Design Opportunities Water (Team – Kerala Rainforest)

Buddha, ‘Brand Water' and creative commons

Design scenario visualisation

Buddha is the sign of knowledge dissemination without bounds. In a way Buddha paved the way for creative commons and the idea of sharing as a whole.

After 15 years, once brand 'keyaar' is established, I believe I’ll be able to do the things with very few constraints of time and money.

My idea of design intervention in water related design opportunities and opportunities as a whole, is to create an online learning/knowledge sharing platform. I call it school’e’ for now. I will choose Internet as it's (I hope so) a medium where there is the least discrimination. And in the case of kerala, we have seen the spread of telecom revolution at a never-before-seen rate, and so when we project this to the net scenario, it’s right to believe that by 2023,most, if not every, household will have a computer and Internet access. The access to the site and its activities will be idea-centric unlike the skill centric institutions of these days. The site will hold discussions on society, ecology, design and logic. The principle will be that of 'practice what you preach' and outcomes will be held for peer-group evaluation. As a part of the program, there will be a water portal, both in Malayalam and English (which is a concept I had during the design opportunity mapping) so that in sync with the basic ideology, information will be open and experiential to all.

Besides these I’ll host an online community, wherein the various aspects mentioned above in school'e' concept will be discussed between activists, designers and artists of all sorts. This community and the school’e’ people will be responsible for the product and / or other ideas which the people of kerala will be able to put into practice. One approach will be to tap local resources like the coconut tree and local wisdom, which will be shared online or on the field.
The financial backup will be provided by my design activities, freelance writing and paintings and shares. As for infrastructure, the resources will be minimal, as a computer and a domain name will be enough for he purpose.
As for the strategy, I will be adopting the Adjusters strategy wherein I will use the normal branding procedure used by high paying brands and the Planman type of promoting one brand with another's activities.
On discussion with my peer group I found that the strategy appealed to all, with someone expressing concern over the classless nature of the Internet and the widespread use of the same. The feasibility aspect of this idea was also appreciated.
I have tried to present the idea in a straightforward manner and is based on the business model study we had in dcc, while the information gathered during the process of earlier brainstorms is used as a base.

Abhijit K R: (Team – Kerala Rainforest)

Design Concepts & Concerns