SmartSurfaces 1.0 Complete

The University of Michigan SmartSurfaces course is now complete. It was a collaborative, project-based learning experience in which undergraduate artists, designers, architects and engineers came together to build physical systems and structural surfaces that have the capability to adapt to information and environmental conditions.

The course was broken into two phases: an introductory / skill building phase, and the final project. For the first part of the course, participants focused on problem and constraint definition, structured brainstorming and skill building. Final teams were assigned in week six and the rest of the semester involved the production of the fully realized, funded projects shown below. Both phases focused on multidisciplinary, collaborative teams to carry out the assignments and projects. An important aspect of this course was the manner in which useful cross-fertilization emerged in the application of different disciplinary methodologies in response to concrete problems in practice.

Course participants had the opportunity to gain experience with using diverse tools and processes. Where possible, learning made use of practical problem solving through experimentation. All participants were challenged beyond their usual intellectual and disciplinary boundaries and had to negotiate and manage differences between the cultures of three university units (Art & Design, Architecture and Materials Science Engineering).

Each team was required to design, build, program and test a ‘heliotropic smartsurface’ that made use of:
• Solar energy harvesting
• Microcontroller programming (with Arduino) and circuit building
• Parametric modeling (with Digital Project)
• Digital fabrication

The teams had to consider and negotiate what makes a surface smart, and why we would be interested in a smart surface that follows the Sun. They had to engage a methodology of defining explicit relationships, complex behaviors, and unforeseen responses in a context of distributed authorship.

This is what they came up with:



The Shy Solar Array: An Adaptive Solar Array That Responds To Weather
Arrays of solar cells are vulnerable to their surroundings, do not maximize the sunlight-collecting surface area, and are unattractive. Inspired by the Mimosa Pudica plant and its tendency to shy away from external stimuli, our shy solar array was created. Our solar array protects itself from damaging elements such as snow or rain by flipping away from them. This will allow the solar array to be implemented in less than ideal weather locations, such as Michigan. Our solar array also maximizes the sun collecting surface area through its unique shape. The form of the array lends itself to a more efficient use of surface area by avoiding shadowing when the cell is rotated towards the sun. Also, the array stands out as a more desirable object that can serve as a stand-alone artifact as well as a useful solar array. Outside of the gallery this solar array would be implemented onto the rooftop of Michigan Engineering buildings as an alternative energy source. To further maximize the collected energy, the solar array should contain solar cells that are specially shaped to the design.

Team Fabric + Super J
Alyssa Ackerman – School of Art and Design
Johanna Brand – Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning
Yuming Jiang – Material Science and Engineering
Chris Johnson – Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning
Mat Schwartz - School of Art and Design
Michelle Svetkoff - Material Science and Engineering



The iWall Modular Light-Filtration System
The wall you see here is a modular, scalable, self-adjusting multi-aperture window, designed to optimize light flow into a room by manipulating the position of rotating wood panels. You could call it an 'automatic venetian blind', as that is the gist of the purpose. The system consists of 30 individual modules, with one panel per module, which allow a variable amount of light to pass through. The structural elements are built modularly, but circuitry elements - such as wiring - are set up in a non-modular fashion. Individual module apertures open and close in reaction to the intensity of the light that passes through the wall as detected by light-dependent resistors (LDRs), seen on the projection side, holding a relatively constant light level on the ‘interior’ of the wall at all times - this gives 'heliotropic' and 'smart' characteristics to the wall - 'surface', fitting it into the premise of the SmartSurfaces course. The actual actuation is by a grid of servos powered externally and controlled through inputs from an Arduino Mega and the LDRs. The materials used in the assembly of the individual modules were 3/16" cast acrylic cut by laser and 3/16" 6061 aluminum sheet cut by water jet.

Team iWall
Westley Josiah Burger - Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning
Peter Hall - School of Art and Design
Brieana MacDonald - Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning
Michael Mathieu - Material Science and Engineering
Taylor McKenzie-Veal - School of Art and Design
Neil Poulin - Material Science and Engineering



Simon
Simon is a heliotropic, feel-good machine. He interacts with a user through motion and LED color mixing and enters a default solar-tracking mode when not in use. Face recognition technology, a simple joint system, and a flexible LED array make possible a wide range of movement and interaction while photovoltaic panels provide the power. By fusing emotional connections with the user, we hope to transform the concept of sustainability from a condition of sacrifice to that of pleasure.

Team Softcore
Rachel Boswell - School of Art and Designn
Eric Harman - School of Art and Design
Marc Maxey - Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning
Lindsey May - Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning
Damien Stonick - Material Science and Engineering
Zilin Wang - Material Science and Engineering



Exposure
Rather than using solar cells to convert sunlight into electrical energy, we are concerned with using the power of the sun in a more direct way. Exposure is a biological, heliotropic lighting system powered by photosynthesis. Living inside the piece are several Dinoflagellates, Pyrocystis fusiformis, aka bioluminescent algae. The bioluminescence of the organisms are set to a biological clock quite similar to our sleep cycle. During 12 hours of daylight Pyrocystis use the available light to photosynthesize, producing their own food and oxygen. At sunset the cells produce the chemicals that cause the luminescent reaction. If agitated during their 12-hour dark cycle, the algae give off a glowing blue light. In Exposure we have harvested several bioluminescent algae organisms, and embedded them into an architectural array. Within the array, varying panel heights correspond to the density of algae organisms contained in each unit. Infrared sensors located below the panels detect human presence, and trigger a motor. Attached to the motors, a cam makes contact with the panels creating enough motion to agitate the algae and expose their bioluminescent glow.

Team Slime
Ivan Adelson - Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning
Aidan Feldman - Computer Science Engineering & Department of Dance
Isaac Krauss - School of Art and Design
Laura Ligeski - Material Science and Engineering
Allison Sturm - School of Art and Design
David Theisz - Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning

The course will be offered again in Fall 2010.

Smartsurfaces

University of Michigan's Smartsurfaces course offers a collaborative, project-based learning experience in which artists, designers, architects and engineers come together to build physical systems and structural surfaces that have the capability to adapt to information and environmental conditions.

The course will operate as a multidisciplinary, hands-on think-tank where participants will pool their knowledge and skill sets to work together to produce environmentally sound and socially responsible projects. Public exhibition of these funded projects will provide an opportunity for participants to present their work to a wider audience and to review their achievements.

Projects will make use of the resources available to all participating university units, such as:

parametric modeling
digital fabrication
networked sensors
microcontroller programming
energy harvesting

The course begins September 11, 2009.

Smartsurfaces (course)

"In order to prepare for a life of productive endeavor in the 21st century, undergraduates at the University of Michigan must learn problem solving across disciplines and launch inquiries in uncharted territories of knowledge and practice. They must examine the assumptions that inhere in a disciplinary perspective and integrate material outside of patterns they are taught. They must locate issues within larger frameworks of thought, negotiate multiple perspectives, and develop habits of critical questioning and creative problem solving. In addition, they must learn how to find their way through disconnected bodies of information and perspectives and create their own path to a coherent education. We believe that the major problems of our time, from the environment to poverty, from human rights to terrorism, from religious movements to health issues, cannot be studied effectively within any single discipline; all involve integrative, cross-disciplinary thinking."

Smartsurfaces - a multidisciplinary, hands-on think-tank

Karl Daubmann ARCH 409
John Marshall ARTDES 300
Max Shtein MSE 489, 490, 493

University of Michigan
Fall 2009
3 Credits
Fridays, 11am-5pm
Design Lab 1, Duderstadt Center

Smartsurfaces offers a collaborative, project-based learning experience in which artists, designers, architects and engineers come together to build physical systems and structural surfaces that have the capability to adapt to information and environmental conditions.

The course will operate as a multidisciplinary, hands-on think-tank where participants will pool their knowledge and skill sets to work together to produce environmentally sound and socially responsible projects. Public exhibition of these funded projects will provide an opportunity for participants to present their work to a wider audience and to review their achievements.

Projects will make use of the resources available to all participating university units, such as:

• parametric modeling
• digital fabrication
• networked sensors
• micro-controller programming
• energy harvesting using solar cells and nanostructured materials

The course is a collaborative endeavor led by three professors who will advise and contribute to all team projects. Teams will make use of visiting lecturers, specialists, site visits and relevant stakeholder organizations.

We have been awarded a grant from the Multidisciplinary Learning and Team Teaching (MLTT) Initiative to support this new undergraduate, multidisciplinary, team-taught course.

Piled Higher and Deeper

I finally got my piece of paper for 'An exploration of hybrid art & design practice using computer-based design and fabrication tools'.

Sharing Pillow by Rui Mu

Sharing-Pillow from Rui Mu on Vimeo.

Rui Mu is an MFA student at the University of Michigan's School of Art & Design. She has been exploring how product design can influence the behavior of users. This is what she says of a recent project:

"In 1979, a ‘one child policy’ was introduced to solve the problem of over-population in China. By 2007, there were approximately 100 million only-children in the country. This has had a great effect on Chinese economic reform. However, it has also introduced new problems such as an increase in selfish behavior that children have. This is currently resulting in a highly increased divorce rate in recent Chinese society since many of them are young adults.

Therefore, I have been exploring the didactic potential that product design has in changing selfish behavior by designing products that only function by being shared. I have designed an inflatable two-person pillow, which cannot be used comfortably without a partner. If one partner tries to use it, all the air will be pushed into the other half of the pillow and will provide him/her with no support. This product will not let one partner be lazy while the other one is working to encourage them to share housework fairly. In addition to changing couples’ behaviors, this pillow also improves their relationship by letting them use it together and spending more time with each other."

Algorithms and Scripting for Visual Art (event)

I have been invited to attend the workshop 'Algorithms and Scripting for Visual Art' at La Salle University, Philadelphia, PA on May 29 & 30, 2008. This is the first in a series of workshops sponsored by the National Science Foundation CPATH Program: Revitalizing Computer Science through the Science of Digital Media. This workshop will examine how algorithms and computer programming are used in the generation of visual art, graphic design, and creatively imagined architectural spaces. The participants will discuss how to direct curriculum and pedagogy in introductory computer science courses toward both traditional computer science majors and students interested in digital art or web-based graphic design. I'm particularly keen because Marc Fornes will be there. Marc is the founder of THEVERYMANY a design studio and collaborative research forum engaging the field of architecture via encoded and explicit processes. Marc is also a curator of scriptedbypurpose.

Design Connexity (event)

The Eighth International Conference of the European Academy of Design will take place at The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland, 1st, 2nd & 3rd April 2009.

Conference themes are:

Design Connexity
As the trend towards globalisation continues there is a growing connectedness between all our actions and a growing interdependence between the social, economic and the environmental. This increasing connectedness raises new moral and ethical issues and challenges. This concept has been termed ‘connexity’ (Mulgan, 1998) and provides the title for the conference and the backdrop for the themes of the EAD 08 Conference, which seeks to explore the implications of these trends for design research and practice.

Design Interconnections, Intersections and Convergence
This theme is concerned with the growing inter-connectedness of design, the interaction between design and other disciplines and the convergence between disciplines. Are design schools becoming the new business schools? Are new design professionals emerging that challenge the existing notions of what designers do? This theme invites papers that consider the impact of inter-connections between disciplines, the professions, and the implications for design education and professional practice.

Design Empathy
Products and environments need to satisfy functional as well as supra-functional needs (including the social, cultural, emotional, aspirational and spiritual). The data that can shape and guide decision-making can be visceral and ephemeral. More compassionate design approaches are necessary to ensure empathy and shared understandings are developed, and are particularly sensitive to how individuals communicate. We live in a verbo-centric culture, yet we experience the world visually. This theme invites papers that address issues, strategies and theories that consider empathic design.

Design Thinking
Design thinking is concerned with bringing about improvements in the human condition. This contrasts with critical thinking, which is concerned with the analysis and the breaking down of existing ideas. Design thinking is a creative process based around the building up of ideas. Design thinking does not seek to evaluate, as there can be no simply right or wrong answers. All ideas are welcome, since these have the potential to provide creative solutions. Design thinking offers strategies which can be applied to everyday situations. This theme invites papers that provide insights into the ways in which design thinking can be applied to address the critical issues facing contemporary society.

Service Design
Service design is concerned with both the tangible and intangible. It may be concerned with human interactions within systems, environments, communication and social interactions between people and organizations. It requires designers to question existing assumptions, undertake close observation of environments, provide diagnostic assessments and envisage new solutions. It has been applied in areas such as information services, health and education. This theme invites papers that provide insights into the application of service design that offer new solutions to tangible problems.

Design Boundaries
In a post-modern digital age we can witness attempts to combine art and technology crossing the boundaries in what was originally described by C.P. Snow (1959) as the ‘two cultures’. Snow’s fundamentally convergent position sought to expose the cultural divisions between art/humanities and science/technology. New design courses are being developed that embrace the concept of transdisciplinarity, moving beyond traditional subject boundaries. This theme invites papers that explore the boundaries between disciplines and professional practices, for example between design and architecture, design and craft or design and fine art.

Responsible Design
Designers are often cited as being major contributors to the ever-growing problem of waste as landfill sites fill up with discarded products that were designed without any consideration for recycling or reuse. Responsible designing makes it imperative that new products are designed with ‘cradle to cradle’ vision. This theme invites papers that explore the issue of responsible design, developing new strategies and insights into how this may be achieved.

Anti-Design
The Ad Busters web site states that: “We are a global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age. Our aim is to topple existing power structures and forge a major shift in the way we will live in the 21st century”. Is this the beginning of anti-design, a reaction against our material culture? This theme invites papers that challenge our notion of the role of design in the 21st century.

Triolin

Alex Sobolev - one of the participants in my Post-Optimal Objects class at the University of Michigan School of Art & Design has made a fully functioning three player violin as his thesis project. The Triolin was made with a combination of hand and digital fabrication.

Post-Optimal Objects (POO) 3

The final project for Post-Optimal Objects (POO) at the University of Michigan School of Art & Design was to design a placebo object for a real or imagined, physical or psychological phobia that would challenge our expectations and preconceptions and provoke new ways of thinking about designed objects and how we use them. Class participants were asked to explore the complexity of how designed objects can modify our behavior by addressing needs that raise questions rather than just be practical, ergonomic or aesthetically pleasing (this project was shamelessly based on the 'Complicated Pleasures' project at the RCA). These objects were not to solve a problem but rather to enable the needs of the user (as the class participants defined them). The objects were presented with supporting materials to allow the audience to understand the relationship between the object and its user in different social contexts.

“By taking the meanings of others as a fundamental starting point for design, designers must proceed from their understanding of users' understanding, which is understanding of understanding or second-order understanding, and this is a way of knowing wholly different from ordinary (first-order) understanding of things”. (Krippendorff, 1995).

Most conventional products are designed with an idealized user in mind. A placebo is the term applied by medical science to the therapeutic and healing effects of inert medicines (i.e. preparations that are pharmacologically inert but that may have a therapeutic effects based solely on the power of suggestion). The purpose of the project was to explore a way of designing that acknowledges human complexity, contradiction and irrationality and transcends simplistic design characterizations of people as simply ‘users’ and ‘consumers’.

Some examples:

Separation Anxiety Disorder Placebo by Alex Sobolev. This was a Structuralist analysis of the Alfred Hitchcock movie 'Psycho'. The placebo object was a mental girlfriend for Norman Bates (that had killed her own Father who was himself dating Norman's dead Mother, or something like that). We are assured that had this condition existed it would have been a much shorter movie with no deaths.


“De vrees om te zijn niet Duch” (The fear of being non-Dutch) by Andy Sell. Those who experience a sense of dissatisfaction in knowing that they do not come from Dutch origin periodically suffer from Nonneederlandobia. The fear of being non-Dutch addresses a social dilemma of individuals whose work, interests and way of life lies parallel with Dutch culture, yet their lack of Dutch nationality disables them to fully identify as such. A a series of designed objects with the intent of making oneself “feel” more Dutch.


Keno-phobic Sound Generation Device by Rob Knecht. Keno-phobia is an abnormal fear of large, empty spaces. This is a synthesizer and sequencer that analyzes the current environment and generates a musical composition for the individual to enjoy and share.

Post-Optimal Objects (POO) 2

As already indicated, this semester at University of Michigan School of Art & Design I am teaching an elective studio course: (ArtDes 300.015) Post-Optimal Objects (POO). This course focuses on designed objects and their cultural contexts. The current project is a Chindogu Challenge:

“Chindogu is the Japanese art of inventing ingenious everyday gadgets that, on the face of it, seem like an ideal solution to a particular problem. However, Chindogu has a distinctive feature: anyone actually attempting to use one of these inventions, would find that it causes so many new problems, or such significant social embarrassment, that effectively it has no utility whatsoever. Thus, Chindogu are sometimes described as 'unuseless' – that is, they cannot be regarded as 'useless' in an absolute sense, since they do actually solve a problem; however, in practical terms, they cannot positively be called 'useful'.” (From Wikipedia).

This project has an additional parameter that participants should make one component part of their Chindogu object that starts out digital and becomes physical (i.e. make use of laser cutting, cnc milling or rapid prototyping).

Lilienne Chan's pant hem saving system.

Andy Sell's laser cut, totally biodegradable collar for urban environments with heirloom seeds embedded in it.

Isaac Krauss's food spill saving device.

Devon Russell's anti booger freeze device.

Ronen Goldstein's Open Source beardguard.

A spin off of this project is Alex Sobolev's (pictured above with his toilet seat for public restrooms) new blog 'Chindogu or Not?' that is a placeholder for a future site http://www.un-useless.com/

PhD

Yesterday, February 25th I successfully defended my PhD thesis (An exploration of hybrid art & design practice using computer-based design and fabrication tools) at Gray's School of Art (Robert Gordon University) in Aberdeen, Scotland. I passed with minor amendments. My examiners thought the thesis made a contribution and that the contextual review was particularly strong. They have asked me to make explicit reference in my conclusion to the assertion throughout the thesis that there are new economic opportunities available for practitioners and to reflect on the curation of an exhibition as a research method. I was examined by Dr. Beryl Graham and Professor Stuart MacDonald, OBE. The examination was convened by Dr. Bernice West. My supervisors were Dr. Jon Pengelly and Dr. Julian Malins.

Soup Pipe

More from the Post-Optimal Objects class: this time its a soup pipe (a pipe for eating soup out of - sometimes referred to incorrectly as a soup bong). This is another project by Robert Lester. The intention is to make a mold and slip cast them. Watch this space...

Update - in the picture above you can see a biscuit-fired soup pipe and some patterns for mold making. Below you can see a finished, glazed soup pipe.

Ceci n'est pas une pipe pour la soupe!

Post-Optimal Objects (POO)

This semester at University of Michigan School of Art & Design I am teaching an elective studio course: (ArtDes 300.015) Post-Optimal Objects (POO). This course focuses on designed objects and their cultural contexts. The class participants are exploring the territory between fine art and design and addressing approaches for developing the aesthetic and critical possibilities of objects outside a commercial context. Participants are also investigating various ways of creatively communicating ideas about objects, such as making appearance models, mock-ups and storyboards. The creative works made in Post-Optimal Objects will be shown as prototypes or communicated via publication (online or print). Participants are thinking conceptually about what they want to achieve, translating these ideas into visualizations, and developing some of these into fully executed and documented works. Digital 3D modeling, scanning, laser cutting, and rapid prototyping can be used together with traditional media such as wood, metal, and plastics.

We started the course with Product 2.0: Design Yoga - a couple of quick projects to introduce the themes of the studio and to establish a number of generative brainstorming techniques. The first exercise involved the Critical Browsing of a list of practitioners’ websites that could be considered to be producers of Post-Optimal Objects. The purpose of this was to identify some characteristics of what might constitute a Post-Optimal Object. The goal was to come up with a working definition of what a Post-Optimal Object could be. This resulted in a Post-Optimal Mindmap.

Next, we generated some Random Products using manual and online generators for wacky product ideas. We spent some time playing with these tools to come up with some interesting textual descriptions/titles of Post-Optimal Objects and developed short statements that contained an outline of a situation, context, problem, need or opportunity that each of these objects addresses. From online image-hosting sites we found images for each of these 'objects'. These images were not necessarily representative of what the objects were but characterized the values or intentions that might support the objects that participants had come up with. The combinations of the description/title of the object, short statements and images were then shown as presentations.

Examples:Soni-Pill® - these easy to swallow little pills actually prove that your internal body movements have a music of their own! Just take one of these tiny, FDA approved pills, turn on your Bluetooth-compatible computer and be amazed as they convert your digestive habits into melodious music to your ears! The music changes with your diet and their position in your digestive tract! Pills stay in your system for approx. 1 day, then come out the other end for easy disposal in your toilet. Safe for flushing! (By Robert Lester).

Random words: bubbles, robots, iron lungs.
An iron lung meant for kids that provides entertainment as well. Every time with then child takes a so-called 'breath', the machine emits bubbles of varying colors, shapes and sizes. Keeps the child alive, keeps you happy and gives you a reason to stay by their bedside to visit until they are better. A critique on the willingness of people to visit their hospitalized loved ones over time. (By Lilienne Chan).

The first full project was a Product Autopsy. The aim of this project was to gain an understanding of and to re-conceive a product through its dissection and reconstruction. The goal was to uncover the Post-Optimal potential of an existing object by conducting a Post-Mortem on a disposed-of designed object. Participants explored how materials, manufacturing techniques, systems and values are brought together in their chosen objects by taking this product apart systematically and documenting this process. Once the object had been dissected and its function and design had been analyzed the task was to re-make the object in a manner that is ‘emotionally-durable’.

“In their current guise, consumer products lack the sophistication and layered complexity for this degree of long-term empathy to incubate. Most consumer products relinquish their tenuous meaning to a single fleeting glance, while rarely delivering any of the life-altering rewards they so confidently promise. In this respect, waste is nothing more than symptomatic of a failed user/object relationship, where insufficient empathy led to the perfunctory dumping of one by the other.”

“… designers must first increase the intensity and perceptibility of subject-object dependency, enabling products to achieve deeper and more immersive modes of prolonged user engagement. This can be achieved in numerous ways: but if the simulation is not genuine, it will be cast off by the user as gadgetry or a deceiving quirk. The illusion of dependency is therefore insufficient; we must conceive products that actually depend upon users and genuinely need our emotional and physical support in order to survive - facilitating the creation of authentic and meaningful interactive experiences that go beyond the virtual, toward the actual.”

“It is therefore essential to avoid the notion of industrial design objects as static in meaning and appreciate that, like paintings and literary works, the meanings evolve over time.”

From: CHAPMAN, J., 2005. Emotionally durable design: objects, experiences and empathy. London: Earthscan Publications Ltd.

Example:


(By Devon Russell).

The Fundamentals of Digital Art (book)

I just received a copy of Richard Colson's book 'The Fundamentals of Digital Art' that is to be published on 27 November, 2007 (I got a copy because I contributed some photos).

My first impression of the book is that it is an informative and visual overview of key practitioners and critical issues in the field. This is what the publisher has to say:

"The book provides an overview of digital art and offers careful explanations of physical computing, using data sources, programming, networks for artists and experimental practices in digital art. The text is accompanied by extensive illustrations, ranging from work by recognised practitioners in the field to current student work from undergraduate programmes. It also includes practical clear workshop diagrams designed to help students develop the confidence to work with the approaches covered in the book themselves."

The book is broken into the following sections:

• Introduction
• The history and development of digital art
• Live art: using response
• Data into art
• Creative priorities for coding
• Art and networks
• Digital hybrids
• Postscript (including a list of resources and links)

It seems well worth a look and I look forward to reading it in depth.

Dead Trees

The image at the top of this post shows some of the paper I've used over the past 3 years in the production of my PhD thesis. Although I'm proud of the work I've done I'm disgusted at the amount of paper and ink I've used. This stack is all the drafts of things I've written - either conference/journal papers or the thesis itself. Time to recycle it.

Gray's School of Art (event)

I will be a visiting lecturer this week at Gray's School of Art. I will be looking at the process of setting up and running personal design blogs and web sites.

Useful links here.

Talking Shop - Glasgow School of Art (event)

Last night I gave a presentation as part of the "Talking Shop" series at Glasgow School of Art. These talks are aimed at expanding the conception of design and its related fields.

"While the physical world remains very much the product designer's realm, today's product designers are also operating in the age of information technology, where intellectual capital and continuous innovation are key. In order that the designers of the future are equipped not only to react to, but also to anticipate, propose & give 'form' to invisible products - such as systems, services, interactions & organisational behaviours- we need to expand the definition of the term 'product'; the product designer of the future must be equally at home within the world of emerging technologies."

http://european-design.org/

http://www.gsa.ac.uk/

»Hidden & Sought« (call)

Marco Siebertz writes: "...we are a young international non-profit design magazine made by students at the Köln International School of Design www.kisd.de Our next issue is about the invisibility of design - "Hidden and Sought" will be the title. We are looking for interesting projects from that subject."

"Roger questions the existent, criticises the forthcoming, illuminates backgrounds and promotes the design discourse."

http://roger.kisd.de/

New position and location

I have accepted a tenure-track instructional appointment at the rank of Assistant Professor at the School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan. I start in January, 2008.

The undergraduate and graduate programs in the School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan each offer a single major at the intersection of art and design. Free of traditional concentrations, these programs challenge students to define their own pathways and undertake robust, self-defined culminating projects in their final year.

I will be teaching undergraduate studio courses utilizing analytical and strategic methodologies of generating, developing and completing complex projects in a variety of contexts; advising graduate students; and periodically teaching a graduate seminar.

The School of Art and Design enrolls 500 undergraduate and 30 graduate students. Forty full-time faculty, a small cohort of part-time faculty, and 35 administrative and technical staff support the School's programs. Additional information about the School and its programs is available at http://www.art-design.umich.edu/

Now I just have to wrap up the PhD...