By: Joep Deiman
Keywords: Living, controlling, relaxed, effortless
Design Goal and Interaction vision:
Providing a temporary shift within the city for working people to get an engaging moment.
A Sudden shift of environment or perspective; from irritating noise to comfortable/reassuring sounds.
Research Explorations:
My first goal was ‘Escape within the city – getting away from the routine of daily life’. I decided to do a Context Mapping session with a target group I thought had the need of an escape: people who are working behind a desk all day. My goal was to get a clear view on the latent thoughts of these people when they thought of their work, focusing on the lunch break. This session gave a lot of insights; during lunch break there is a need for ‘rest’ or ‘(social) interaction’. My participants thought ‘escape’ was too negative. Words like ‘pause’, ‘break’ and ‘shift’ suited better. I continued exploring the context by searching for existing solutions, talking to the target group a lot and via design explorations.
Design Explorations:
I did a lot of design explorations by drawing and brainstorming. Especially the brainstorm sessions with a couple of student from our studio were very generative and useful. While designing, first the focus was on passive objects to fulfill the need of rest. Then I decided to explore more in the direction of interactive products that make people aware of the noise surrounding us. I came up with a ‘Tunnel’ that played with sound. To evaluate different concepts with sounds, I tested some of them with a small group to gain feedback. Eventually I wanted to avoid an imposed interaction and tried to return to an object people can use when they want/need to. The final concept was evaluated by making all kinds of scale models that were used in a stop motion movie. This was a very effective way of testing the imposed interaction without building large prototypes.
Final Design:
The final design is a big and soft chair in the shape of a Shift-key placed in for instance the canteen of an office. When someone needs a silent moment during lunch break, s/he can take a relaxing seat on the Shift. If someone wants to take a seat in the Shift, the key-shape will transform into a chair. Once the person is seated, s/he will be embraced by the chair, especially around their head. It will block surrounding noise and play the reassuring sound of birds.
