DESINV 212

Designing Emerging Technologies II (DET II) is an intensive, project-based course which serves as part of the core required curriculum for students in the Master of Designing Emerging Technologies program. Students are led through a sequence of projects of varying lengths (from one week to one month). The course builds on Designing Emerging Technologies I, and focuses on developing fluency with a different set of technologies. Projects include both individual and team activities, with teams frequently changing in size and composition.

This course takes a holistic and discursive approach to material-driven design, bringing together a technical, experiential, historical, and contextual understanding of materials within the design process. We discover and emphasize the role of materials in design as something that is simultaneously technical and experiential. How do the materials that we choose to use in the design process act as a catalyst for conversation? How do we create tools for thinking; how do we activate thinking through making?

View Projects by Semester

• Spring 2022

Spring 2022

 

Coco

A material exploration that treated coconut fiber (coir) with shampoo, conditioner, and hair dyes used on human hair to elevate its properties, and resulted in the creation of a set of handmade paintbrushes.

Project by: Abhi Ghavalkar

 

 

 

 

Bisque

Bisque investigates the insoluble and permeable characteristics of porcine using digital fabrication through pigments and living plants.

Project by: Elijah Lee

 

 

 

 

 

Charcoal Plastic

A material exploration with charcoal as a bioplastic.

Project by: Susanne Pierce Maddux

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fixation

This project investigates bioplastics + the common leftovers that will fundamentally change the characteristics of the bioplastics.

Project by: Xiaobai Ji, Yu Cheng

 

 

 

 

 

Of course I still use you

This project shows the potential of discarded workshop waste at the Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation and how it could stay useful within the building instead of ending up in a landfill.

Project by: Jan-Simon Veicht

 

 

 

 

 

Hybrid Annexes

Hybrid Annexes is a project about Plastiglomerate that challenges our Enlightenment-style thinking about materiality and proposes a more metabolistic approach to it.

Project by: Georgios Grigoriadis

 

 

 

 

 

Sceorf

A research and experiment which aim at exploring the essential characteristics of leather fiber.

Project by: Yiying Wu

 

 

 

 

 

VITALS

An exploration of plant sonification. It experiments with the collection of plant “biometric” data through sensing technologies, and converts it into aural outputs as a translation of plant “communication.”

Project by: Effie Jia

 

 

 

 

The Woven Forest

By dematerializing and reassembling willow trees with yarn, it explores trees as a soft and malleable material for textile, that makes intimate conversations between humans and nature through touching and weaving.

Project by: Xinyi Zhu

 

 

 

 

Bond

Bond is an adhesive that enables creative exploration in 3D space. Pen is to paper as 3D pen is to bond.

Project by: David Zhou

 

 

 

 

 

Symbiotic Clothing

Symbiotic clothes explores an alternative future of using living things as wearables.

Project by: Zhiyue Wang (Luna), Jiaxuan Ren

 

 

 

 

 

Second Skin

Second Skin is a material study that explores bees’ products (beeswax, pollen, honey, royal jelly), as a malleable, transparent, adhesive layer that can temporarily heal, and protect damaged skin.

Project by: Penny Lin, Mercedes Saldana, Shuyang Yu

 

 

 

 

 

Design for Uncomfortable Consumption

An exploration of the use of insects, specifically crickets, as a bioplastic and composite material.

Project by: Adam Huth

 

 

 

 

 

Auroras of the Seas

This project proposes bioluminescent plankton as a design material capable of visualizing kinetic disturbances.

Project by: Titus Ebbecke

 

 

 

 

 

Concrete Jungle

Concrete jungle explores nature death and the possibilities of natural forms.

Project by: Franklyn Bucknor

 

 

 

 

 

Hu-man

From reflection on a 3-month long ankle injury and healing process, the work explores the process of coming apart and repair using the traditional Chinese ointment Tiger Balm applied to Xuan paper.

Project by: Kailin Li

Full listing