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The purpose of this study was to to examine what teachers think about visual art and how the learning process in this subject does look like. To answer these issues, I made interviews with five teachers of visual art from different schools, and I examined several examples of pupils’ artworks. The stories of the teachers were analyzed in relation to governing documents and with assumptions from sociocultural theory, postmodernism and pedagogical - aesthetic research as theoretical point of view.

By the qualitative interview method, the observations of the pupil’s artworks, and by the analysis of the interviews with the teachers, I have come to the conclusion that teachers think differently about art but they try to keep themselves in line with the national governing documents. Its affects aspects of disciplines, styles, techniques and medium that is exemplified by the pupil’s art works, and it points out similarities and differences between the pupil’s art works and between the teachers when teaching visual art.

2045 a progressive European city is banning driving and BMW has to respond. Technological evolution, and a culture used to new interfaces leads to the option to recreate the relationship between human and car. But how to interact with our new friends?

Talking to experts in the fields of science fiction, environmentalism, horse riding and piloting helped in first constructing a future and then tailoring an interface-vision for its inhabitants and their autonomous cars.

The result is a tactile bond connecting driver and machine. Working together with your car doesn't have to mean loosing control, it's just another quality of control.

The state of the world is changing. By 2050, The earth’s population will increase by 3 billion and building sector is asked to construct 3 billion new housing units inside urban centres. Since one of the fundamental needs is food, agriculture sector also needs to adjust itself to this growing number of people. Nevertheless, in 2019, Agriculture used 50 per cent of all earth’s habitable land and experts estimate that we need 109 hectares more land to cultivate however this amount of habitable land is approximately the land which is represented by the country of Brazil and 20 per cent more. Moreover, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations states that water use grew twice as much as population increase and agriculture already is using approximately 70 per cent of the global freshwater. At this point, experts like Professor Dickinson Despommier suggests that the only way humanity can tackle its future food safety issues is to find ways to introduce vertical farming inside Urban centres. The High Garden project is resulted by the world state today and is trying to find an architectural solution to the mentioned issues. It starts firstly by studying the issues more thoroughly and then tries to form a framework which includes and transcends them. It studies how the construction sector is acting now and how it can reorient itself to the situation whilst limiting its negative environmental impact. Then the thesis tries to understand the basics of vertical farming methods compared to the conventional geoponics farming as it is practised today and how it can integrate the better cultivation solution inside city centres. The last step of the theoretical studies of the project is to look at the history of integrated farming and EcoArchitecture. After understanding the theories of the issue, then the thesis starts to form itself as an architectural intervention using the architectural tools and methods and combining the studied disciplines. The result of the thesis is a modular configuration which can accommodate various activities such as aeroponic farming, local markets, zen areas, and drone subscription deliveries etc. Because of the modular construction of the project, it can adapt and adjust itself to different situations and it uses an algorithmic tool to analyse and study existing cities to find proper intervention points. Then it is attached to the existing buildings as a sustainable green extension solving some issues and revitalizing the dead city edges. Keywords: State of the World, rapid urbanization, population growth, geoponic agriculture, Co2 emission, greenhouse gas emission, aeroponic farming, modular architecture, sustainable architecture, EcoArchitecture

On a national scale, statistics relating to moving patterns shows that youths and young adults are the ones who tend to move the most. The case in Västerbotten is similar as in the rest of Sweden and many municipalities are experiencing a population decline. This thesis aims to look into the motives behind moving from the perspective of youths and young adults and through that propose a strategy to strengthen the place attachment youths and young adults feel to their home municipality. The research is centered around Lycksele in Västerbotten.

The research questions that the thesis aims to seek answers for are; What could an architectural strategy that aims to support youths in their leisure time and also strengthen their connection to the area look like? and What programmatic aspects are important to consider in such a strategy?

The thesis investigates spatial needs from the perspective of youths and young adults which have been investigated through literature studies and action based research focused on interviews and a workshop. Four themes were common in both interviews and the workshop, these were; closeness to nature, possibility of work, valuable leisure time and a sense of home. To understand how an urban strategy can respond to the themes, strategies applied in other municipalities have been analysed. A finding was that in order for strategies to attract more inhabitants, they need to have a holistic approach and offer a complete lifestyle. Creativity is a theme which came up during interviews and literature studies as a possible platform around which an area can become considered as more attractive.

The proposal is an urban strategy which aims to respond to the common themes from interviews and the workshop by enhancing and encouraging activities taking place and activating social space. This proposal suggests a strategy which aims to strengthen the notion of sense of place to enhance place attachment and through that possibly invite more young adults to move back in the future.

This research focuses on the emergence of 'digital walls' that can project images onto almost all or even the entirety of interior (and perhaps exterior) walls, and what implications this might have for how we arrange our rooms. It demonstrates the arrangement, i.e., the way that domestic products are arranged physically, of rooms changes in the domestic environment in a complex scenario when using large screens. Due to the fast-growing demand for large screens, this product could potentially be available to be used by people in their home environments; however, it does not yet exist in reality at this scale. Constructing large screens can be carried out using different production methods. Here, this concept is called the digital wall, a very thin wall-sized interactive screen. The characteristics of the digital wall will vary to be able to create different scenarios. One such scenario is a space in the home where the surface of the wall is covered with screens, which allows multiple possibilities to experience and interact with digital content. 

In this research, the social gathering space of homes, nowadays called the living room, is considered as a highly relevant space for installing the digital wall. In this space, the conceptual framework outlines the basic elements of the research and demonstrates the relationships between people’s interactions with the digital wall and domestic products in the domestic environment. I show two examples from design history to understand how arrangement changes impact the home environment: the transformation of the parlor to the living room, and entry of the television into the living room. These two examples are focused on the place in the home where people gather for socializing. The discussion of these examples led to the elaboration of the relationships between the elements in the conceptual framework.

I explored relevant design research methodologies to bring this future scenario into the present to understand the relationships between people and the digital wall. I applied research through design and the constructive design research approaches to frame the design research methodology. In this thesis, I set up seven series of design studies in two cluster groups: Supportive studies and Main studies. All of the design studies were conducted in the Design Research Lab, the actual space for carrying out the design experiments, prototyping the digital wall, and the setting of the experiments for user participation. The Lab was fully equipped with relevant technology and allowed me to use multiple methods to collect data while people were experiencing the design study sessions. The Lab was useful as a platform to understand user experiences, barriers for interactions as well as people's experiences in a simulated space of a domestic environment. 

The main contribution of this research is to understand the forms of arrangement changes when people use the digital wall in homes. The research demonstrates two significant implications that are seen in two forms of arrangements: tangible arrangement and imperceptible arrangement. These findings are useful for both designers and users of the elements of domestic contexts and the relations that can be shaped by the presence of a digital wall in home environments. This understanding may provide design guidelines in future scenarios in which the digital wall is used in homes. The findings are also beneficial for designing the domestic environment, improving the arrangement of space, and raising the requirements for designing domestic products.

This paper presents the possibilities of a design lab that can be used in evaluation processes for different design subjects in design education. Three student projects from different domains are studied to explore how utilizing a design lab for user involvement can affect the design process. The Design Lab is situated at Mid Sweden University and can project images, video and online materials on three walls and provide sound. Different tools to collect data are available, such as video cameras, equipment for psychophysical measurement and software for analysis. The studies show that design students can use the lab to prototype different scenarios or environments as well as to display large subjects at an appropriate scale. The study found that the Design Lab offers possibilities to involve diverse groups of users, such as people with disabilities, the elderly and even dogs, which gave the students the possibility to obtain feedback from the specific users that could provide the most valuable input.

To understand how different design solutions affect users, designers traditionally use different evaluation methods that mainly rely on conscious feedback from the users. However, the complexity of human behaviour, where a large part is unconscious, point to a need for an extended tool box addressing the part not accessible to human conscious knowledge. Here, we describe a design research lab where traditional methods are complemented with tools to measure physiological signals influenced by emotional and sympathetic responses. These tools include galvanic skin response (GSR), electrocardiograph (ECG), and electroencephalograph (EEG). Typical sessions with acquired data of conscious and unconscious user reactions are described. The large body of data collected, which also require non-design expertise for interpretation, suggest that a further development towards simplified output data of the unconscious reactions is needed to allow wider use within industrial design work.

Orthopedic surgery is dangerous, especially for the surgeon! Tool failures belong to the ten most frequent causes of operation delays. Nowadays, hospitals are pressured to optimize procedures and lower costs. Especially, orthopedic surgery is physically demanding for the ergonomics of the surgeon and tools wear out more quickly.

Could the evolution of a surgical power tool be used in these scenarios to ease and support the surgeons work, increase the efficiency and flexibility of usage and at the same time offer more control and knowledge about the condition of the tools?

Reconstruction and densification of Gamla storgatan in Holmsund.

The Umeå Pantry was a five-week long public art event held in Umeå, Sweden, aimed at making concerns about food production public and supporting local communities interested in food related practices.

The event consisted of a series of performances where participant communities were invited to a dialogue on food concerns and practices in the region. The performances took the form of communal activities such as food harvesting, cooking, workshops, debates and demonstrations.

The making of the art event highlights the practice of creating forms for engagement and participation of disparate communities around social issues.

In the broader picture, this project contributes to the understanding of community participatory design and design for social innovation.

The case study presented here is an intensive nine day community participation project in a Swiss town, aimed at fostering community food production. The approach to participatory design presented here seeks to emphasize the in-situ improvisatory ‘doing' of collaborative activities.

Using notions such as diffusing, reifying and catalyzing the study describes the iterative movement of the project that is bound up in material arrangements and social relations.

Through a reflection in action approach, the author unpacks how the designer's agency is understood through social interactions and acts of summarizing, materialization and translation.

The paper concludes by discussing power and agency, both as an outcome and central to the design process. This reflective exploration through the lens of agency seeks to encourage the reflexivity of designers in collaborative practice.

The primary objective of ventilation in a building is to ensure that the Indoor Air Quality (IAQ), together with the heating system, keep the thermal climate at an acceptable level. Meaning the deployment of ventilation air at the appropriate temperature rate supplied to meet the thermal climate into the parts of the building where residents reside.

In Sweden, the two most commonly used ventilation strategies are stack ventilation and forced extract ventilation. Both methods utilize exhaust openings in kitchens and sanitary areas, while fresh air is drawn from either permeable external walls or through inlets located near windows and as distant as possible from the exhaust openings (Manz & Huber, 2000). Stack-effect ventilation, also known as buoyancy ventilation, utilizes convective forces. Thus, vertical interior openings such as stairways or atriums play an essential role in the distribution of air and its suitability. Utilizing additional building elements such as a chimney enhances the stack-effect ventilation by elevating the height of the “vertical core” of warm air within the structure. The disparity in density (the difference in temperature between hot and cold) increases as a result of the amplification of pressure disparities (Liu et al., 2010). Hence, larger differences in pressure between the inside and outside will result in an increased driving force for the stack effect by enhancing the convective currents. The principle operates by drawing cooler air from the exterior,generally from the bottom or sides of the building, into the building. The air is then gradually heated and ascends through the vertical core due to convective forces, before being ultimately discharged through the chimney (Savin & Jardinier, 2009).

The architectural proposal seeks to adhere to sustainable building development by employing deliberate steps that incorporate a combination of principles and strategies based on the theory of convection. In order to acquire knowledge and validation, an extensive investigation of case studies was carried out, with the works of Philippe Rahm serving as the fundamental basis for further development. Furthermore, a laboratory environment was established to conduct physical tests as well as virtual simulations (CFD) in order to gain deeper understanding and accuracy regarding the relationship between convective forces and geometry.

The thesis set out to place a bet based on the notion of consciousness, in terms of implementation of chosen principles, using materials with low embodied carbon, and employing a strategic geometric relationship. This approach enabled the design of an architectural proposal that is both responsive and educative, while also addressing the existing knowledge gap between different professions.

This paper will explore a new notion of urbanity in the context of planetary urbanisation, through the investigation and analysis of the following themes: urban-ecology, urban-infrastructure, and new processes of urbanisation.

Globally in the medical and healthcare field, due to technological advancement and higher success rate of life-saving procedures, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of blood stem cell transplants performed each year. Consequently, the demand for blood stem cells from the donors is continual. The process of acquiring these cells from donors has its obstacles. Once volunteers are willing to donate and are identified as a potential match to the patient, they go through various stages, involving a long waiting period for the donors. 

The aim of the project  is to apply and combine interaction design practices in the healthcare and medical world: how it would affect and shape specific experiences for the blood stem-cell donor. I would propose a digital service design that provides strategies to enhance the donation journey experience for the volunteer donors and the stakeholders involved in the process.

The thesis project explores how we might design alternative ways to enhance a donor experience through digital services. 

Manifest

Today we live in a society were we live longer, with access to food,medicine, pure water with all services we could possibly need around the corner. Still we struggle with growing issues that our way of living and planning have affected us. Together we face issues of rising housing prices with a steady progressing marginalized rental market. Causing segregated gentrified areas of high income in comparison to low income. At the same time we contaminate the environment around us without reflecting of how we can alter our way of building and living instead. Previously we had access to pure air, water with tighter relations with our community, living with the nature without being a bystander that have distanced herself from it.

What have we lost along the way? I will through my project propose an alternative to how we plan our city today, by working from following points.

-Living in a natural landscape without implementing a generic city plan that do not consider the qualities of the site. I instead intend to take advantage of the natural qualities while combining them with our modern way of living.

--Living with nature without impeding long lasting harm to nature, this include treatment of wastewater from the housing.

-Creating a social diverse community by combining housing to prevent the development of a gentrified area of high income elite. As a part of this is to design affordable housing that low income groups can afford to rent or buy.

-Vivid community life by offering both public and private spaces, with community activities.

The food industry is one of the most pivotal sectors in our daily lives that in turn affect other fields such as our health, education, and our environment. Today 50% of all humans around the world live in cities and by 2050 that number is expected to have grown to 70%. This will inevitably increase the pressure on a steady stream of supplied food in a world where half of all land is already cultivated all while suffering the consequences of climate change, biodiversity loss, and land degradation. Therefore it is essential to revalue our food industry as even though we might be disconnected from the actual production, the consequences of our consumption pattern are certainly not. Through reconnecting the supplier with the ones being provided for there is the potential of increasing the awareness of our behavior. Enabling the possibility of attaining equilibrium by transitioning from a linear degenerative food system to one that is regenerative and distributive.

In order to understand the feasibility of such an endeavor, this thesis explores the market dynamics and consequences of the global food economy, in addition to how a local circular economy can achieve community stability in a highly volatile industry. This will inform the framework of the presented proposal in the context of Umeå and how local resources in combination with legislative policies can be utilized to bring back food production inside the city. This proposal will not solve the planetary imbalance of the food system but instead, see how it can be tackled locally and bring back the topic of food as an active collective responsibility. While how the architecture design can accommodate and adapt to allow for these communities to thrive.

As a concern for how new city developments invest in commercial

public space of economic activity rather than cultural activity and

inclusion, part of a global trend and also the case of Umeå’s ambition

to reach the population growth of 200 000 inhabitants by the year of

2050. The question to be asked in this regard is what kind of effect

does this produce on the way we as local inhabitants can take control

and be part of the creation of our own living environment? Or are

we just victims of a life consumed by slow decay due to the capital

dominance?

In relation to this main concern, the project has been developing

through the aspect of acknowledging inferior space and abandoned

objects as a method and typology to analyze alternative ways to

perceive the city off based the logic of clear function and use, but in

terms of human interaction and subjective perception of space. The

point of departure and important key element for this development

derived from the early stages of research and influential work by

Robert Smithson’s Monuments of Passaic New Jersey, (1967) with

a main quote on the description of Smithson’s work and the term of

monuments, here defined by Ann Reynolds as: “how something plot

out and charge a space with meaning”

Learning from memory traces of an abandoned set of futures evoked

the idea and strive towards creating space not tied to a specific

use or function, but as a collaboration and juxtaposition between

form and the viewer’s experience. In add to an understanding of a

presence which ties together the past and the present as an indirect

translation of the developed concept for contemporary Ruins, as the

perception of void. The ruins association to object defined through

the observer became a guideline towards the aim of designing nonhierarchical

space, free of us and interpreted by the visitor within the

city scape.

Based on this foundation this thesis aims to examine the possibilities

of architectural structures which can encourage and create conditions

for new cultural and social meetings. The abstract concept of space

and deliberate openness to interpretation can allow the visitor to

take co-authorship of their own living environment based on their

personal understanding and imagination of that space. The action

is by deliberate disjunction between form and viewer’s experience

forced by a superimposition plan as a design strategy for redeveloping

the current Döbelns Park into a new culture park in the city context

of Umeå, Västerbotten, Sweden. Fragments of the park will in add

create a system of integrated monumental sculpture scapes, as a

network of in-between small scale interventions adapting to specific

site conditions together with implemented greenery. To secure areas

within the city scape with access to greenery and social interactive

meeting points, part of the Urban strategy.

På 1890-talet var intresset för cykling stort i Finland. Intresset avspeglades även i musikkulturen eftersom det började komponeras musik med cykeltema. Endast en liten del av den musiken har getts ut kommersiellt i Finland. Kaj Ahlsved har grävt i arkiven och i samarbete med musiker levandegjort musiken så som den finns nertecknad i version för hornensemble i Finlands armés stämböcker. Hur lät ”cykelmusiken”, vem komponerade den och varför?  

The contemporary understanding of well-being has been shaped by societal ideas that long-term happiness of life is achieved by meeting and securing certain needs. These needs have been shaped by physical necessities as well as perceived needs, cravings. This misconception about well-being is problematic because it bases our well-being on circumstantial factors rather than identifying it as something found within ourselves. By considering well-being as a consequence of an external factor, we nurture a culture of striving and consumption. Ideas of achieving well-being through accumulation harm our environment whilst moving our source of well-being away from ourselves.

If we instead try to accept well-being unconditionally, by understanding how our minds work, we can nurture not only ourselves but our surroundings. Mindfulness practice is used to break the illusion in our experience where it seems that we are a self (an ego, centered behind your face/eyes riding along in a body) (with needs that correspond to this ego/self). It creates an opportunity to relate to the own experience in a new way that can include more layers of the world.

The essay tries to spatialize mindfulness practice through four steps towards a greater insight of the mind. This aims to create opportunities to critically reflect upon the own mind and to break the illusions about the self. The essay tries to understand if architectural elements can help the user to question their experiences and thus enable new insights into what the experience is (intrinsically / in itself) and question what it means. The project will also lead the user to question its own physiological needs and create a symbiosis with the well-being of the natural environment. This hopes to create an opportunity for the user to include new layers of themselves, where the planet and life on it are included. 

When we can break the illusion of the self, we will gain a greater understanding of what well-being for ourselves can be, which means that we can include the well-being of others in our own and become actors for well-being rather than secure future well-being for ourselves.

Awareness is the experiencing in life. It is how you experience being yourself in your surroundings moment by moment. But of all the possible things you can be aware of in the moment, it is something that always takes the spotlight. Attention is that directing spotlight. Attention is the focus in the open field of awareness. Attention is something that we have all the time, but it seems to be constrained to the experience of a thought or emotion that we have in the moment. We have a feeling that we are our thoughts and therefor as soon as something arises in the mind, we have an urge to strive towards what´s pleasant and pushing away what´s not. But the attention is directed towards what seems more important at the moment and our values can therefor change due to the circumstance that we are in, and instead of acting in our environment, we react. Meanwhile we habitually direct our attention towards so many things that we hope will contribute to our wellbeing, that we don’t have time to see that we are directing the attention in the completely wrong direction. Wellbeing isn’t the effect of any outer condition, it is a state of mind. Our minds are the space where our lives are played out. Which means that the only thing we could possibly have control over, is how we respond to the situations that occur in our lives. 

To make us the director of our attention, to not lose more moments to a momentary reactive mind is hard. During my investigations of how Japanese architectural strategies activates the mind, the aim for my project was developed, to shape spaces that activates awareness. The challenge is to not direct the attention in another direction, but to put the attention on attention itself. This project tries to do this by merging body with space, or by making the mind the space. 

Solving future problems is a part of the masterprogram of transportation design, where thepossibilities and the push are to tackle socialand environmental problems. In this thesis, thedesigner was keen to investigate the value ofshared vehicles in future megacities since thesedense urban areas will face more challenges thantoday with the increased demands in housing,education, health, leisure and transportation.In order to investigate the future problems thatmegacities will face, the designer focuses ona speculative design approach that is used tohelp navigate the scenarios and determine themost applicable one, enabling him to determinethe values of a shared vehicle. The speculativefuture suggested a formation of segregated sub-societies within the city where individuals areforced to share certain mobility services. However,this segregation will have a reverse effect onhow the mobility behaviour of individuals mightchange in avoiding certain mobility services dueto its association with a sub-society other thanthe one they belong to, for example, people withdifferent ethnicity or social classes.Since mobility systems and vehicles areconsidered facilitators of such segregation andsub-societies formation, the solution can beprovided as a shared mobility vehicle. Such avehicle will form a focal interaction between twostrangers sharing the same route. Using ancientarchitectural techniques (the velarium andoculus), the vehicle creates a humble gatheringexperience that crosses economic, social andethnic differences.To achieve such a design, the designer useddifferent techniques in 2D design and 3Dmodelling to push for multiple directions that led to the formation of one concept, Velaria. TheVelaria is an autonomous oval-shaped vehiclewhere the rounded form, the velarium and theoculus at the roof provide an experience ofhumbleness and gathering by introducing thesky and the light as a higher umbrella or domethat brings users from different backgroundstogether. This technique was used in romanbuildings like the Pantheon and the Colosseum,and carried on to modern art and architecture.This project provides a glimpse of the implicationsof current mobility systems regarding theformation of social sustainability. Thereforethe project gives a clear direction of what thefuture values of the vehicle can be and how thevehicle can be the starting point of weaving thesocial fabric to achieve a resilient society thatcan change the future scenario of mobility andsociety in future megacities.

Buildings and urban spaces increasingly incorporate artificial intelligence and new forms of interactivity, raising a wide span of research questions about the future of human experiences with, and within, built environments. We call this emerging area Human-Building Interaction (HBI) and introduce it as an interdisciplinary domain of research interfacing Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) with Architecture and Urban Design. HBI seeks to examine the involvement of HCI in studying and steering the evolution of built environments. Therefore, we need to ask foundational questions such as the following: what are the specific attributes of built environments that HCI researchers should take into account when shifting attention and scale from "artefacts" to "environments"? Are architecture and interaction design methods and processes compatible? Concretely, how can a team of interaction designers bring their tools to an architectural project, and collaborate with other stakeholders? Can and will architecture change the theory and practice of HCI? Furthermore, research in HBI should produce knowledge and practical guidelines by experimenting novel design instances that combine architecture and digital interaction. The primary aim of this article is to specify the mission, vision, and scope of research in HBI. As the introductory article to the TOCHI special issue, it also provides a summary of published manuscripts and describes their collective contribution to the development of this field.

The ATLAS presented in this section is the result of a call for students’ projects based on the topic FOLLIES in the public realm as objects and places of delight and pleasure and, therefore, of fun and happiness. Follies were to be thought of as urban devices that would trigger the social and cultural transformation of cities, as mechanisms for positive social change, and as attractive structures to promote encounters between people and between people and places.

First proclaimed an amazing innovation, now plastic permeates everything—our homes, food, earth, oceans, many living creatures, including ourselves. The use of plastic is problematic, but hard to change. It is culturally situated, commercially embedded, learned, ingrained, often automatic. And, while alternatives are available, they can be hard to find and more expensive than their plastic counterparts. To engage with this issue, we undertook a design-based investigation of DIY bioplastic, edible and hyper-compostable tableware. Our aim was to render such alternatives more accessible. DIY recipes are available online.

Yet, often lack vital information to make their use easy. We discovered how to ‘tame’ fabrication of plastic alternatives by adding information about cooking and curing to the recipes. Our experiments suggest that ‘at home’ production of bioplastics and the accompanying re-design of cut- lery and tableware, engender new, more sustainable, eating habits by - literally - designing new ways of eating. They also afford reframing of food ‘waste’ into material resource. We present a hand-made book and material sample set that make our findings tangible and accessible to design researchers, amateur gastronomists, DIY enthusiasts, and others curious about plastic alternatives. Our findings support a move of scientific practices from the lab to people’s homes. 

The introduction of maker technology and personal fabrication has radically changed how we learn, design, and innovate. In recent years, a growing number of people have begun using a broad range of creative technologies. A common challenge with using these technologies is the difficulties during electronic circuit prototyping, particularly for end-users. This research investigates the causes of wiring problems and the troubleshooting strategies used during the prototyping of electronic circuits by nonexpert users. We conducted an ethnographic study of students at a university design school engaged in prototyping electronic circuits with creative technologies. We performed a microanalysis of the students' interactions and dialogues according to the distributed cognition framework. Results show the significance of having meaningful information on the prototyping tool in addition to the importance of the students sharing common ground so that they can effectively detect and solve wiring errors. Our conclusions highlight some relations between types of wiring errors and solution strategies.

This paper puts forward the early, practical actions “in context” that can begin to sensitize, orient, expand, and constrain design dialogue at the outset of a design effort. Drawing on a case of “breaching experiments” in “non-places” we explore a “first approximation” of interventionist participation into the context of future interactive & responsive design interventions. By introducing a design journey, we have shed a light on how a human-centric approach, applied to the context of Human Building Interaction (HBI), can support an interventionist design dialogue between people and designed environment through processes of stirring up what’s beyond ‘norms’ of interaction.  

Have you ever thought about how dependent you are of the systems in society - the government, the municipalities, and the economy in an everyday life perspective? Probably you have, but have you thought about how much? Imagine a day when it is -20°C outside and the power goes off. What do you do?

If you are not prepared - like most Swedes aren’t - you soon have no way of heating your home, put on the lights, cook food or take a warm shower. Today you are supposed to be able to survive without governments help for one week in case of a crisis. Most of us can’t manage that.

I think it’s absurd how much we all depend on these systems. It’s scary. The population of the world is growing and by 2050, 75% of the population will be living in and around cities. Today 42% of the worlds land surface is used for farmland. Can we expect that the government will provide food for all of us? We need to be able to be self-sufficient within the borders of the city, and not only in the countryside.

My project is not about going off the grid and being 100% self-sufficient. It’s an experiment to see if it is possible for people to live without governments help to provide power, food, water and heat in a city environment, both in the everyday life and in case of crises.  It´s about taking small steps for helping the environment, ourselves and society. Being self-sufficient doesn’t mean you can’t keep your job or your hobbies; today the technology is so developed, making it possible to be self-sufficient without having to give up our time. The project will be placed on a vertical scale to make the footprint as small as possible and to see how many people it is possible to host in that limited area.

The programs in the project are divided into three categories: food production, technology, and social programs. In my research, I’ve mainly focused on food production using both vertical farming and traditional farming. Other systems that I also focused on are the technological aspects for creating a passive building and a bioclimatic design using passive solar systems.

The site that I have chosen is on Ön, an island in central Umeå. For several decades, several generations of politicians in Umeå have discussed the future of the island but have now proposed a new city plan with a total of 3600 apartments. The planning is based on building ecologically, economically, technically as well as socially sustainable, which I’m hoping to achieve with my project. My plan is to take over a small block for my project, thus the design is adapted to the site and its conditions.

This paper explores the intersections within bodily materialism and future textiles by inquiring into embodied practices and materiality in care. By plac- ing the body as a site of research, it centres around con- cepts of bodily care and the body as an ecosystem, one that is always in flux and considers the fluidity of bodies and bodily fluids, such as urine, discharge, breath and sweat, as fluids with potential to design with. It looks at how bodies are acted upon by outside forces, and explore more-than-human relations as co-creators in co- habiting the space of the body and that around it. To illustrate this, the paper introduces a series of design research artefacts that take a variety of approaches to exploring the materiality of care in the everyday. First, an eTextile toolkit that aims to create bodily awareness through hands-on engagement with textile crafting tech- nology, then a biotextile harvesting toolkit that involves the raw material of the intimate body that explores DIYbio in the context of the home, and lastly a set of wearable living material-based explorations that recog- nize biomimicry and symbiotic relationships in designing for chronic stress. In embracing notions of bodily materi- alism, this paper explores the bodily abject, i.e. fluids and the more-than-human as crucial to engendering new modes of knowing in intimate and personal care through textile-based materials. The paper engages critically with textile design research and practice by placing material that embraces care as ambivalent at the forefront and thus challeng- ing traditional approaches to health and care and, importantly, the design of future textiles. 

With developing technologies and growing infrastructures, connected experiences are expanding their realms towards various devices and scenarios in our lives. One of the areas, which is going under a big change due to this connectivity is the car related experiences. As connectivity is intrinsically enabler of different experiences and services, it is foreseen that it will bring a different dimension to car and driving related experiences as well.By investigating the future trends and possibilities that connectivity can provide to car and driving related experiences, this thesis aims for imagining the near future scenarios with an explorative approach, focusing on one and addressing to the rising issues with a design proposal that is meaningful to both users and the industry.The result, Tripcloud, contributes to the future scenario of having a road trip with the car, with a new digital platform that aims for supporting the users throughout the planning and bringing the plans into the car experience seamlessly and safely. It aims for reducing today’s existing complexity in terms of interaction and cognition to provide a better experience and avoid driver distraction. With providing organised information pieces, information exchange between people and automated links with mobile devices and car, Tripcloud offers easier an more convenient alternative for road trip planing and bringing the plans into car experiences for the near future.

In this pictorial, we turn to culture and traditions to present an annotated portfolio of play-food potentials, i.e. interesting design qualities and/or interaction mechanisms that could help promote playful and social engagement in food practices. Our portfolio emerged from a one-day workshop where we played with and analyzed a collection of 27 food traditions from diverse cultural backgrounds and historical periods. We highlight play forms and experiential textures that are underexplored in Human-Food Interaction (HFI) research. Our contribution is intended to inspire designers to broaden the palette of play experiences and emotions embraced in HFI.

While conducting a review of food-related technology research, we discovered that activity in this area is skyrocketing across a broad range of disciplinary interests and concerns. The dynamic and heterogeneous nature of the research presents a challenge to scholars wishing to critically engage with prior work, identify gaps and ensure impact. In response to this challenge, we are developing an online visualisation tool: an app that affords diffractive reading of the literature, mapping interferences and differences from varied perspectives. We present our first iteration of the app, which enables scholars to navigate the literature through seven lenses-focus, agency, domain, date of publication, author keywords, and publication venue and type. Here we present the first iteration of the app, toward receiving critical input from concerned researchers, to validate our approach and ensure relevance moving forward.