These slides explains how design activity can expand its object from construction materials to emergent performances. This is part of the lectures on Design Thinking from PUCPR.

1. Expanding
the design object
Frederick van Amstel
http://fredvanamstel.com
Architecture and Design School
Digital Design
PUCPR

2. Systematic design thinking
•Define requirements before starting
•Designing separate modules or components
•Creating systems that connect all parts
•Avoid mistakes and failures
•Decisions based on quantities
•Designing with explicit constraints

3. Systematic design-a-house software concept

4. Intuitive design thinking
•The project stems from a moment of inspiration
•The concept is visualized through sketches, which
transform into alternatives and models
•The project is refined until it reaches a high
degree of internal coherence
•The project is not implemented by its creators
and must be defended or sold

5. Intuitive eyebrow designs made among students

6. Expansive design thinking
•The project stems from developing empathy by a
particular type of person
•Work is collaborative and involves many
disciplines
•Design models are simple and accessible by all
•Emphasizes an holistic vision (social,
psychological, technical, financial)

7. Expansive design for a house gets to a fundamental
question (Why having so much with no time to enjoy?)

8. Again, what is the object
of design?
What do we design when
we design?

9. Expansion of the house as a
design object
Object: construction materials (brick house)
Object: complex entity (modern house)
Objeto: emergent performance (dwelling experience)

10. Expansion of the eyebrow as a
design object
Object: construction materials (hair removal)
Object: complex entity (eyebrow design)
Object: emergent performance (aesthetic treatment)

11. Expansion of the website as a
design object
Object: construction materials (HTML + Javascript)
Object: complex entity (webdesign)
Object: emergent performance (user experience)

12. What is an object
in activity theory?
•It has both a concrete and
an abstract existence
•It is transformed into a
product or result
•It raises various motives,
even the conflicting ones
•If removed from an
activity, the activity looks
nonsense

13. Objects = Instruments
Most common mistake done with activity theory

14. Cooking
activity
Eating
activity
Served
food
Eaten
food
Self-
feeding
activity
Food

15. The same material thing can become different objects

16. The same object can raise many motives

17. Activity theory is complex
since it is a theory of
organization transformation.

18. Change explanation:
Activity changes when the
object expands.
Yrjö Engeström

19. Expansive cycle
A new need starts to
bother people, but they
do not understand it
People face strong
conflict of motives
around the object
Creation of a new motive and
instruments that materialize it
Applying
instruments and
dealing with
resistance to
change
Consolidation of a new
object and activity
Engeström, 1987
1
2
3
4
5

20. Design problems
•Design problems try to make the unspeakable
motives clearer to people
•What is a problem for someone is not a problem
for another person
•Design problems do not have a right or wrong
solution because they exist to motivate people
for doing something about the need state
•It is difficult to tell when a need is fulfilled
because the need is never fully understood

21. Design solutions
•A proposal to change activity through instruments
that better deal with the current needs
•Instruments that materialize the new motives
•It is never final or ultimate. There is always
something left to improve
•New instruments may face resistance to change
and recede back to strong conflicts of motives,
preventing the consolidation of a new object

22. Tactics to expand design objects
•Investigate the motives behind the object
•Create a provocative solution
•Import an instrument from another activity
•Promote the confrontation of interests
•Share the object among multiple activities
•Make a contradiction visible

23. Investigation of motives behind having eyebrows in society

24. A provocative solution to expand the object of eyebrow
design (what if eyebrows were like moustaches?)

25. Imported instrument from another activity (moustache)

26. Eyebrows as a shared object among two activities
(eyebrow design and eyebrow wearing)

27. Confronting the question of being someone (who are you?)
with the possession of a house

28. The contradiction of working hard to accumulate properties
and having no time to enjoy them

29. Instruments I often use to
expand design objects:
co-creation materials

30. Post-it
•One idea per post-it
•Good to generate ideas in
silence and discuss later
•Ideas can be reorganized
later so it does not need
to have a pre-determined
structure

31. Lego
•People have experience
•The pieces activate
memories of similar thing
•Good to express
complicated things that
are difficult to speak
•Quick metaphors

32. Kraft paper
•Turns any space into a
cocreation space
•Cover walls and tables to
avoid scratches and losing
Lego pieces
•Creates an atmosphere of
creativity

33. Small whiteboards
•Write or draw together in
a group
•Since it is so easy to
erase, it avoids the block
of wrong start
•Present the work of small
groups to a larger group

34. Whiteboard on wheels
•Take advantage of stand
up posture
•People can come closer
and leave with little
acknowledgement
•Can create temporary
spaces

35. Recycable trash
•Sustainable material
•Useful to deal with
consumption topics
•Metaphors from everyday
familiar objects

36. Play-doh
•Warm up exercise
•Express feelings and
emotions
•Rapid prototyping

37. Smartphone videos
•Quick to produce
•Depict everyday scenarios
•Documenting interactions
across time

38. Hats and masks
•Helps a person (especially
the shy) to pretend she is
another person
•Masks reduces the
laughter when getting into
character

39. General recommendations
•Prefer flexible materials that you can use to
materialize different motives
•Prevent a single person to monopolize a material
•Take advantage of last minute ideas and bring all
your materials even if you don’t plan on using
them
•Use materials to make visible and actionable
conflicts of motives and contradictions

40. Exercise
•Try expanding the house, the website and
eyebrows when they become a design object
•Rethink these objects
•Use the co-creation materials as you wish to
materialize the new motives
•Try the tactics to expand design objects (slide
22)

41. Thank you!
Frederick van Amstel
http://fredvanamstel.com
Architecture and Design School
Digital Design
PUCPR