Erdi: Reflective Device
Company Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design
Introduction Date June 10, 2018
Project Website https://www.cohere-4.com/home/2017/8/21/prototype-iii
Why is this project worthy of an award?
How could we invite visitors to exhibitions and public space events to openly express their opinions and reflect on the thoughts that other people have left? Erdi is programmed to collect thoughts/opinions on a difficult current topic related to the event from visitors in the space (and online). It subsequently shares these thoughts with visitors to the public space event and asks visitors to share their thoughts with Erdi. While Erdi follows a specific flow, Erdi is also listening for input and is designed to create the illusion of a conversation. Over time, Erdi fills with thoughts and recollections that people leave behind in their discussions with Erdi (and, asynchronously, with one another - in that each person hears what others have said thus far). Erdi is an evolving record and reflection on the visitors’ own experiences and feedback on the themes of the event or exhibition.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
Erdi pushes traditional notions of how dialogue can be conducted and captured in public spaces such as museums, exhibitions, lectures or festivals. While these places often set forth the intent of nourishing dialogue on difficult societal topics, it is challenging to actually record the fact of this happening, and it is even more challenging to stimulate, facilitate and structure said dialogue. While Erdi is not "the answer", it provokes alternative thinking on how to engage with one another about the questions that often plague us but we are too fearful to discuss openly. Furthermore, Erdi is a new tool for institutions that are trying to better understand how their cultural work - whether exhibitions or lectures or another type of topic-based public event - actually affects and impacts the public. Erdi is based on previous research and prototyping: https://www.cohere-4.com/home/2017/7/30/prototype-1 https://www.cohere-4.com/home/2017/8/2/prototype-ii https://www.cohere-4.com/home/2017/8/23/dialogic-experiments
Who worked on the project?
Annelie Berner + Karina Korsgaard - Principal Designers Monika Seyfried - Research + Videography Christopher Bogar - Actor in video Gabriella Arrigoni + Areti Galani - Researchers
View the project video: https://vimeo.com/230812086
ET-One
Company Thor Trucks
Introduction Date December 1, 2017
Project Website
Why is this project worthy of an award?
Thor Trucks is a transportation lab that is tackling the toughest fleet management problems. Their first product is an electric semi truck called the ET-One, which will present fleets with 30-40% TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) savings. Commercial fleets are constantly looking to reduce overhead costs, repairs, and emissions––anything that will help the bottom line. Thor recognizes that an electric vehicle could address a number of these areas all at once––things like fluctuating fuel prices, maintenance, and compliance with the EPA and local communities. The commercial trucking industry is experiencing tremendous growth thanks to the recent boom in ecommerce and expectation of free two-day shipping. In fact, according to the American Trucking Association, the demand for freight is expected to increase by 37% over the next decade; not surprisingly, the number of class 8 vehicles in operation by 2028 is expected to rise 19%, from 3.43 million to 4.07 million. However, diesel-engines are among the biggest contributors to global warming and the EPA is mandating increasingly stricter emissions and anti-idling laws. For example, in 2023, all trucks and busses that operate in California must have 2010 model year engines or equivalent emissions. When a fee for an outdated truck can cost a truck driver (and fleet) $25,000, an electric motor starts to look very attractive from a compliance perspective. However, building an electric semi-truck and having buy-in from risk averse OEMs in Detroit is extremely difficult. Thor, an LA-based startup, has taken on this challenge with a unique design approach. Thor Trucks’ design of the ET-One, which includes a modular powertrain and lightweight, stackable, cylindrical batteries, means that the vehicle can easily be scaled to meet the needs of various commercial truck applications where diesel engine performance falls short, be it class 3 delivery and refuse trucks that idle frequently or class 8 regional hauls that travel less than 300 miles a day. Also, instead of building custom components for their vehicles (an overall inefficient model), Thor is providing versatile, scalable solutions for fleets, which in turn saves on maintenance costs and increases a vehicle’s life cycle. Thor’s scalable vehicle design means fleets could replace 80% of their trucks with Thor vehicles right now and in the process significantly reduce pollution and noise in communities. With the ever-increasing presence of trucks of all sizes in urban areas, Thor’s EV platform is ripe for providing solutions to the problems of urban noise and air pollution, the latter of which extends well beyond just city limits. By taking the existing shipping infrastructure and applying an electric solution to it, Thor is showing that overhauling the commercial transportation industry (and not just the passenger industry) and setting it up for a sustainable future can start now. Sometimes the most revolutionary design is the simplest, and in the case of Thor Trucks, designing a truck and fleet operation system that both allows for quick adoption now and allows fleet operators to “future-proof” their fleets is that simple solution.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
Growing up in Los Angeles and working in fleet management, Thor’s founders, Dakota Selmer and Gio Sordoni, recognized from an early age the technological inefficiencies that exist in commercial trucking, as well as the pressure on the industry to eventually move toward zero emissions. In fact, at one point, Dakota had to retire an entire fleet of class 8 trucks in his operations because they did not meet emissions requirements. Needless to say, the ET-One’s design is the product of ingenuity informed by industry insight combined with passion to reduce a fleet’s carbon footprint. It begins with the battery design, which is different in its layout and cooling process to most electric batteries. After shopping around for a battery they could buy off the shelf, Dakota and Gio realized most batteries on the market were only suited for passenger vehicles, which have significant size constraints, compared to a class 8 semi. Dakota and Gio ultimately spent 6-8 months researching which costs they could reduce if they made modules and packs in-house. These key engineering and design differences mean that Thor’s battery is one of the most energy-dense on the market for the price per kilowatt, making it extremely competitive in the commercial electric vehicle space. Thor’s battery starts from a cylindrical cell, which is a format that is stackable, modular and swappable. Due to the swappable nature, it’s easy to replace a pack if a problem does occur. Balancing the weight of an internal combustion platform is a significant issue engineers and designers have to deal with, but it’s one that’s eradicated in Thor’s electric platform. For example, Thor’s EV platform doesn’t have to deal with daily weight-fluctuations caused by a 5000-lb. gas tank going empty and destabilizing the entire weight of the truck. The consistent weight of the ET-One significantly reduces the stress on the vehicle’s torque and braking systems, which truck drivers appreciate. The reduction in stress on the vehicle’s critical parts allows it perform under unpredictable conditions, such as ice or unstable acceleration. Given the typical stress diesel engines are under, another major problem is the amount of maintenance and repair the trucks require. A typical diesel internal combustion system has has 16,000 moving parts, and the odds of just one part failing during a trip are very high. An electric propulsion system, on the other hand, has just 20 moving parts, drastically reducing the need and cost of maintenance. The practical design approach to building the ET-One to maximize savings and reliability for fleets underlines Thor’s strategy in identifying the engineering and design challenges that are major sticking points for electric trucks and tackling them with reasonable solutions that don’t have to wait for the rest of the infrastructural and automotive world to catch up in order to be put into practice.
Who worked on the project?
Dakota Semler, Founder & CEO Gio Sordoni, COO John Henry Harris, Senior Mechanical Engineer Priyankar Balekai, Chief Product Officer
View the project video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po80nVKg6uw
Facebook Global Partner Centers
Company HUSH
Introduction Date March 5, 2018
Project Website https://heyhush.com/work/facebook-global-partner-center-experience/
Why is this project worthy of an award?
At Facebook, it’s important for leaders to connect with partners and engage in a deep dialogue about the company’s mission, products and vision for the future. While there are many ways to do this, Facebook believes in experiential design and in-person storytelling. As a result, they wanted to roll out a refreshed design vision for their Global Partner Centers in key locations around the world. Inside, guests partake in unique experiences, tailored to their needs, and are inspired around the company’s vision. To begin, we worked intimately with Facebook’s business marketing and technology teams to outline a core strategic vision, over-arching guest narrative, and key storytelling points. Our desire was to bring these stories to life with interesting creative technologies and guest interactions never before seen, and available nowhere else. We foreground the partner and put them on a narrative journey moving from their individual place in the world, to a global, interconnected chronicle. We then leveraged this strategic framework and applied it to three specific architectural spaces that would undergo ground-up construction (or complete renovations) to satisfy the vision of the experience. In an extremely collaborative fashion, we programmed, designed and delivered both the physical and digital experiences within the Partner Centers, first at Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters, then London and Singapore, tailoring all the storytelling components, interactivity, content, data points, and even materiality of the space to the local market. This made each experience unique, geo-relevant but designed with a consistent voice. In the end, the Partner Center is transformed into an interactive space defined by 12 core installations highlighting the company mission, culture and Facebook’s family of apps and services. We worked hard to combine analog and digital experiences, both active and passive, to keep the experience dynamic. Each leverage consistent but surprising UI paradigms and creative technologies, data visualization and sound/visual feedback as well as strong, repeated architectural forms to give gravitas and framing to critical brand ideas. Underneath it all, a global CMS (Content Management System) allows the team to customize and tailor content for unique partner storytelling across the globe. This allows Facebook to foreground important content, conversations and data relevant to the audience at hand. Further, a suite of analysis tools tracks every interaction, every view and behavior across all interactive experiences at all locations globally. This provides the Partner Center leadership with important design feedback around their KPIs to assess experiential success, tailor future design iterations and adjust stories to be most relevant. We sought to create a feeling of Facebook bringing the world, and its communities, closer together. Hundreds of partners, employees and guests visit the Partner Centers every day. The experience helps Facebook answer some important questions and explore critical ideas: • What happens when people can share, watch, create, connect and discover in ways that are both familiar and new? • What happens when the smallest business can go global, and the biggest brand can become more personal? • What happens when billions of people and millions of businesses meet?
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
“The Fountain” Brings the Facebook mission to life by connecting individuals to communities using the Facebook Reactions and other emojis in a fun and interactive way. Partners start their journey by contributing something that represents them - how they feel, their favorite sport or the country they’re from. With a quick flick of the wrist, they send a digital Reaction to the digital columns in front of them and watch as their sentiment becomes part of the larger community. “The Globe” Shows our communities around the world and demonstrates how Facebook's global insights can help businesses grow. Facebook’s mission is to bring us all together as a global community. This is a huge project, bigger than any one organization or company, but there are ways Facebook actively contributes. Guests simply touch anywhere to activate the experience visually and sonically. The more touches, the faster the reveal of a refined, graphic world map appears. The multi-touch design encourages participation from the group allowing each person to be part of the overall experience, while also investigating things of interest to them specifically. Architecturally, the space is custom designed to demonstrate globality, uses specific materials per location, and provides an open look into the structure. The shape represents the rotational force of the Earth and its slats represent Facebook’s values of transparency and openness. Functionally, it comfortably fits 8-10 people, and has 5.1 sound with a custom musical/sonic score related to the interface interactions and animations. “The Spark” Visualizes and celebrates the social good happening on Facebook’s platform. When people connect, powerful things happen. A story can create resonance and manifest positive world-changing impact. Guests simply select a story on the multi-touch interface and see its impact in words and numbers. From there, they flick the story up and overhead and the data and metrics of the story unfolding on Facebook’s platform ignite the lighting display for an artistic interpretation of the data. The radial light display illustrates how a central event can spark an outpouring of support and love from the community that goes global. “Facebook To Go” Facebook has an amazing visual culture centered around screen printed posters with statements about their vision, values and beliefs. Guests can design their own posters on a series of multi-touch screens with simple swipes that integrate layers of visual and typographic content. Easy to create, easy to share, easy to customize and take home. “Spotlight” Encourages engagement with Facebook’s visual platforms and products (e.g. Instagram, Facebook, photo, video and Stories) and creativity tools to capture and share the Partner Center experience. The layered visual design means no spot is a bad spot for a photo and three pre-programmed, animated light movement options encourages video capture. “Instagram” Guests are immersed in Instagram as a platform where people come to be inspired and to connect with other people and business who have the same passion of shared interests.
Who worked on the project?
Face-to-Face Marketing Director, Julie Hogan Executive Content Marketing Lead, Beatrice Liang Builds and Experiential Marketing Manager, Max Gallo AV Design Engineer, Dan Gerson Art Director, Chris Wojcicki Global Workplace Design Director, Terry Raby Global Standards Manager, Shirley Lam Interiors and Design Manager, Elizabeth Leonard Facilities Project Manager, Georgina Hansford Content Production Manager, Kara Lloyd Copy Writer, John Cantwell HUSH (Design Agency) Creative Partner, David Schwarz Technical Partner, Erik Karasyk Executive Producer, Kristen Koeller Senior Producer, Eloise Murphy Production Coordinator, Nicki Ishmael Communications Producer, Kari Fry Design Director, David Lehman Creative Director, Jasmin Jodry Technical Director - Software, Justin Martin Creative Technologist, Blake Rutledge Creative Technologist, Beau Burrows Creative Technologist, Shawn Lipowski Creative Technologist, Paul Houx Creative Technologist, Adria Navarro Creative Technologist, Christopher Kim Creative Technologist, Josh Peterson Technical Director - Hardware, David Crumley Systems Designer & Sound Design, Adam Kruckenberg Designer, Brice McGowen Designer, Ryan Rowlett Senior Designer, Devan Harlan Designer, Andrew Galloway
View the project video: https://wdrv.it/d04cd3c69 Password: FacebookFastco
FCX-001
Company Bell
Introduction Date March 7, 2017
Project Website http://www.bellflight.com/company/innovation/fcx-001
Why is this project worthy of an award?
The Bell FCX-001 was Bell’s first concept aircraft to help present a 3D roadmap for delivering safe, technology-driven and more efficient rotorcraft solutions. It has since been called Bell’s helicopter for the future, designed to revolutionize the pilot and passenger experience. The engineering and innovation team aimed to create a new architecture of helicopter that balanced geometric symmetries, and the team drew inspiration from organic forms. Current helicopter manufacturers do not make concept vehicles for demonstration or discussion. We are one of the first to truly create a concept vehicle that could one day change the helicopter industry. It’s our pioneering nature. The FCX was built as a full-scale mockup and appeared for the first time at Heli-Expo 2017 in Dallas, TX, where passengers could do an immersive virtual reality experience of the twin-engine aircraft. Notable elements in the FCX’s design include a fan-driven anti-torque system, hybridized propulsion, morphing main rotor blade tips, an extensive use of glass in the fuselage, gull-wing doors, a cockpit entirely free of physical controls, and the use of augmented reality (AR) in the cockpit to control the aircraft. On the ceiling of the widened cabin, which was configured for eight passengers at Heli-Expo, but can accommodate up to 12, our innovation team designed a honeycomb of drop-down control modules to allow for maximum customization and comfort for passengers. The concept envisions the modules providing the ability for passengers to adjust things such as their lighting, temperature, or infotainment experience. The FCX came from a novel approach, as Bell gave a group of engineers and designers free reign to push the boundaries of rotary-wing design, with just a handful of set requirements to meet. Among these was the hybridization of at least part of the drive system, advanced anti-torque, more autonomous operation, noise reduction, and a more pleasing passenger experience. Instead of accepting current technology available as just the way things are, the FCX allows Bell to demonstrate a future that will improve traditional helicopter technology and move the industry forward. It’s the visible result of a renewed emphasis on technology and innovation at Bell. That’s why we believe the FCX is worthy of the “Experimental” award.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
The technologies we incorporated into the FCX are forward-thinking and currently being created at Bell, including: Hybridized Propulsion Hybridized propulsion combines advanced thermal engine cores for the main propulsion with, for example, electric distribution and motors to drive the anti-torque system for more control and simpler vehicle operations and maintenance. Advanced Anti-Torque Concept Traditional helicopters feature two rotors, one on the roof and one at the trail. The FCX features a new anti-torque system in the tail boom designed to change the safety, noise and performance parameters of vertical lift aircraft forever. A tail boom anti-torque system provides extra thrust vectoring capability for added control of the aircraft. The elimination of a traditional tail rotor will also reduce potential injuries and accidents when passengers walk near the tail end of the aircraft. Advanced Airframe Design An airframe that is made from advanced sustainable materials to provide structural performance and offer configurations that our customers desire. We explored the right combination of material and geometry to enhance interior situational awareness, visibility and room. The airframe itself is quite different than anything Bell has done previously. It’s bigger than our traditional helicopters both length and width, with lines and extensive use of glass and composite materials. Advanced Landing Gear A landing gear with non-traditional geometries that facilitate function when combined with advanced materials and actuation. Morphing Rotor Blades We designed the aircraft to feature morphing rotor blades that allow it to optimize performance in different flight regimes. The structural geometries of the blades push beyond the enhancements that we’ve created of our current helicopter blades, inlets and aerodynamic surfaces. The ability to alter the rotor blades during forward flight offers two big advantages – fuel efficiency and an overall lower noise profile. Bell is a pioneer in this area having developed the tiltrotor concept of one geometry for helicopter mode flight and a completely different geometry for airplane mode flight. Virtual Flight Deck The twin-engine FCX has a single pilot seat and an entirely new flight deck experience with the pilot controlling the aircraft through augmented reality and an artificial intelligence computer assistance system. Enhanced Cabin Design A highly modular passenger cabin enhanced with the same augmented reality technology for individualized infotainment to catch up on world news, hold a video conference call, share documents with other passengers or simply watch a movie or play music to relax.
Who worked on the project?
Bell Strategic Communications Team, Bell Innovation Team, Sector 5 Digital, ROUSH
View the project video: https://drive.google.com/open?id=187l2SkD-bzXEeKKlBN5z_S4SZZYIqcbx
Future Erasure
Company Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design
Introduction Date January 30, 2018
Project Website http://cohere-4.com/futurescaping
Why is this project worthy of an award?
Future Erasure is a futurescaping workshop created by CIID Research to immerse and engage museums in a difficult but pressing problem: to explore and design possible futures of heritage in a world where there is no universal canon to distinguish what is worth remembering and preserving from what is not. Based on research about current trends, indicators and technologies, we imagine a future where museums are so overwhelmed by the amount of items that should count as heritage; they can no longer keep their full collections and must delete 20% of it every year. To figure out what to delete and how this challenge would affect the museum experience of this future, on the day of the workshop, we invited a group of heritage experts from different museums to form the Deletion Bureau. We used speculative design and design fiction methods to create materials for this future, such as newspapers, films and a series of physical prototypes, to immerse our participants in this future scenario. Two major tasks were designed to stimulate debate and push our participants to articulate their values and visions for the futures of their institutions' heritage. The experts came from European museums, thus the activities focused around issues regarding European heritage and personalised the materials around the scenario and the problems their institutions face. We sought to communicate and demonstrate how our participants might push their own pre-defined assumptions and have a productive discussion about the future of their institutions by using co-creation and speculative design methods. Together, we embraced the potential of speculative design to create a new space for meaningful reflection by inviting participants to tangibly interact with their visions and build new ones. The project demonstrates how futurescaping can be used as a research tool to reflect and spark discussion-- in this case about the current hopes and fears around the digital and a clear need for reshaping the societal value of museums and cultural institutions in the future. While the workshop is specifically shaped around challenges that the heritage experts and practitioners from various European cultural institutions face, the future challenges that our scenario poses are ones that many organisations can relate to - and the structure could be reconfigured to apply to other sectors. The methodology of futurescaping and its accompanying speculative design tools allowed us to investigate how values, decisions and overall missions do or do not align - in an open, discursive and imaginative way.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
EXPERIENCE DESIGN Our workshop had a series of steps, from priming before the workshop to immersion in the future, to tackling the challenge of the day through various tasks. The flow of the day was designed such that we stepped one level higher in speculation for each task. PRIMING To make our workshop as personal, relevant and immersive as possible, we asked our participants to send us two objects that they believed represented European heritage. SCENARIO We brought our participants into the Future Erasure workshop and their challenge of the day by creating a kit, a morning newspaper and video - materials that step by step transitioned from 2018 to 2038. TASK 1 After understanding the role and need for the Deletion Bureau, our participants started their work. Their first task was to reflect and negotiate the heritage-items the Deletion Bureau should keep/discard. Following our story, they generated variations on pseudo-code algorithms to search through their collections. How would an artificial intelligence, using their algorithm, know what these items represented conceptually? The experts sorted and arranged keywords associated with the heritage items they had chosen, finding a common agreement of which concepts (and their associated heritage items) would be most important to keep. We put their choices into action, inputting the rubrics into an interactive visualisation that kept/discarded participants' heritage items. Because the materials they worked with (heritage items from their own institution) were especially picked and familiar, they felt those items' deletion/preservation more keenly, bringing the emotional dimension of Future Erasure. TASK 2 In the second task of the day, we took a different lens on the problem of heritage over-abundance. We imagined that instead of erasing the 20% of the objects, we could use a Transformation Machine to distill them into their essential qualities. In groups, the participants agreed upon one item to delete from their collections. They noted the crucial attributes to keep about this item, to be re-experienced somehow. They then took their item and crucial attributes to our Transformation Machine, and we compressed the item into a simple token that "now held the crucial attributes to be re-experienced." The groups created re-experiencing devices for the crucial attributes with special kits. Lastly, they envisioned a future museum experience for this future heritage item. This was the most speculative exercise and led to visions of a future where satellites contain the heritage they couldn't store in museums, and these satellites encircled everywhere except Europe. The museums' underlying needs were articulated and ignited so much that the participants pledged to bring the concepts back to their respective institutions. CONCLUSION Our Deletion Bureau uncovered hopes, fears and desires around the future of (European) heritage - they created shared, universally accessible collections, affirmed the subjectivity of heritage artefacts; and fears, such as losing the story from a material object. Through fictional scenario-setting, diegetic prototypes and imaginary machines, the workshop suspended disbelief so that the participants could sincerely consider and speculate about futures that stretch beyond the visible horizon.
Who worked on the project?
Research + Design team: Monika Seyfried + Annelie Berner - Principal Designers Gabriella Arrigoni and Areti Galani - Researchers Graphic Design: Calle Nordenskjöld Interface + Machine Design: Peter Kuhberg Artificial Intelligence + Machine Learning Consultant: Andreas Refsgaard Video-making: Emmanuel Tenenbaum, Gizem Boyacioglu Scenario video actor: Yuxi Liu
View the project video: https://vimeo.com/258609327
