Essays
2022
Arguing that the procedures and spatial layout in council meetings promote dependency and robs public members’ agency, we sought to bring change in our thesis project by creating a pattern language and high fidelity prototype, The Oracle, for the inclusion of public members in decision making.
However, counter to our emancipatory aims, difficulties in implementation arose. I discuss three challenges through an Ingoldian lens to participation, and provide two recommendations for better participation in the parish council context. I thus situate the study in a canon of work that aims to explore, understand and overcome challenges to participation.
2022
This essay introduces co-design, notes role-playing as being under one of its three categories, gives a background of role-playing and the need for it in the Gumtree project. It further analyses the role-playing workshop used in the Cumtree project through the lens of two models.
2022
Critical design has become a growing design practice over the last two decades. This essay introduces critical design, establishes the project outcome as a critical design work, and appraises it against criticism of critical design.
2022
Project link: baladoesmaux.tumblr.com
Despite a long tradition of research focused on individual creativity, group creativity research is a fairly new field. However, even with considerable scepticism about the creative potential of groups just thirty years ago, subsequent positive empirical and theoretical developments have established a strong grounding. This essay aims to contribute to this literature by investigating collaborative creativity in the ideation process for the Violet Disruption project.
2022
Project link: baladoestheuxthing.tumblr.com
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Following Dewey’s (1910) and Schon’s (1983) pioneering work on reflection and reflective practice, reflection has become an important tool to cultivating learning. Recognizing the importance and utility of reflection, the essay serves as a reflective inquiry into a section of the decision-making process between the interim prototypes and final output for the UX of Paper project.