B1.2 Report - FLIGHT (Project Smart Cities: Internet Cafe 2020)

7/29/2019 B1.2 Report - FLIGHT (Project Smart Cities: Internet Cafe 2020)

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F L I G H TFUTURE COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

B1.2 PROJECT SMART CITIES INTERNET CAFE 2020

JORT BAND, POUYA BOZORGZADEH, ANQI LI, BRAM DE VOGEL



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People have always wondered whatthe future might look like. From

Fritz Lang’s 1920 Metropolis to

modern-day science fiction such

as Minority Report, we have tried to im-

agine what it’s like to live in several years

from now.

When talking about the future now,

however, one thing seems to be certain;

the ever increasing influence of the in-

ternet and the digital world on our daily lives. Originally invented in the 1970’s

as a US military and university network

named the ARPANET, the internet we

know nowadays has spread throughout

the world. It connects people and devices

globally.

rough connecting users virtually,

many opportunities exist and many are

still being discovered. is affects our

daily lives ever more. An example is therise of flexible working, a development

that has been accelerated because of

the internet. e possibility of working,

meeting and communicating with people

in different physical locations means you

can work wherever you want to work, al-

lowing for unprecedented flexibility and

possibility on the go.

Although the ease of doing many things

virtually is appealing, we find ourselvessometimes surrounded by more technol-

ogy than actual people we can talk to.

Although the internet offers a substantial

amount of benefits, e-mail and social net-

works still don’t act as a replacement for

natural human interaction. We are rather

talking to a system and machines than to

another person. Meeting in the physical

world still seems to speed up a working

process more than digital interaction. Es-pecially in companies where every bit of

time counts, this can mean a lot.

Looking into the future of the work-

ing environment in 2020, we decided to

personalize the working space again. Re-

connect the professionals, stimulate com-

munication and collaboration. We call it

Flight.

Find out what it is about. Let us show

you our journey in creating it.

Bram de Vogel, Jort Band, Pouya Bozorg-

zadeh, Anqi Li

AN INTRODUCTIONTO THE YEAR 2020



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SPECIAL THANKS TO SANDER MULDER, OUR FAITHFUL SUPPORTER, GUIDE & MOTIVATOR



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VISION



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PROJECT

DESCRIPTION



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Cities are concentrations of

people, commerce, services,

culture, entertainment and

education. In today’s cities,

and with all the technology, having easy

access to other people and to facilities

no longer requires their physical vicinity

as in the traditional cities. Instead, peo-

ple and services are “one button away”,

creating the notion of “digital cities”,

this development imposes the danger of

eroding the traditional concept of cities

as physical concentration of people, ser-

vices (both profit and non-profit) and in-

frastructure. e notion of “digital cities”

(?), this project focuses on the notion of

Internet café’s: places where people can

go and meet people who are physically in

other locations. While traditional Inter-

net Cafés usually enable individuals gain

access others through the internet, Inter-

net café’s 2020 allows a group of people

at one place to meet a group of people in

another physical location.

e project fits in the evolution from

E+ (local City department and Society in

collaboration with knowledge institutes,

2003-2009) through B+ (Brabant Acad-

emy, since 2009) as a regional virtual

network for sharing knowledge to W+,

a worldwide network for sharing knowl-

edge and cooperation. e target group is

the Facebook generation, more specifical-

ly representatives of the creative industry

(new age entrepreneurs), for whom shar-

ing knowledge and cooperation are no

longer linked to a physical location.

Our overall goal is to design ‘Internet

Cafe 2020’: a place where groups of new

age entrepreneurs can meet with similar

groups elsewhere for sharing knowledge

and cooperation, learning from each oth-

er and appreciating the different cultural

backgrounds.

We gained our visions through differentkinds of idea generation techniques and

by narrowing down the original project

description, in order to make it for our-

selves clearer. At the same time, we tried

to match our goals to the client’s need in

the best possible way. Finally we decided

to focus on the following areas: Eind-

hoven In e Cloud, Out-Law Business,Open Knowledge In An Open World and

YOU™. Using these we spread out and

came up with four individual concepts.

By validating the feedback collected in

the mid-term exhibition and combining

the essential criteria from each concept,

we worked out the final design.



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I

t is an average working day of the week,

sometime in the year 2020. Another day for

Julian to work for the company that current-

ly employs him. Today, he may decide to go

to the offi ce; however, he mvay also choose to

work from home or from one of the flexible

working spaces available in the cities. No mat-

ter where Julian goes, he knows that he has ac-

cess to everything he needs. His smartphone

and tablet computer constantly connect him

with the internet through mobile broadband

and ensure that he is constantly in sync with

everything and everybody. While Julian is en

route to today’s working location, he uses his

smartphone to pay for public transport and

receives traffi c information >>> >about the

line he is travelling on, by simply being there.

Having checked in with his phone at a work-

ing and meeting location, he may either work

using the common touchscreen table on the

WORKING

IN 2020



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desk in front of him or instead use his own

tablet computer. No matter what he chooses,

he knows that he will have access to the files

he needs for today.

The Internet of Things

Julian’s workday is very well technologically

feasible. In fact, the almost complete penetra-

tion of internet-connected devices in our daily

life doesn’t lay that far into the future. Already

we find ourselves surrounded in a world with

an increasing amount of electronic devices ca-

pable of connecting to the web. In 2020 there

will be 50 billion devices connected to the in-

ternet (Evans, 2011). However, it won’t just be

devices that will be connected; everything in

our world that we can put an identifier or chip

on, will be part of the net. ese will likely not

only connect to the global internet, but also

form networks of their own; the so-called In-

ternet of ings. e integration of technol-

ogy in almost every part of our daily and our

working lives will allow unprecedented pos-

sibilities of interacting with objects and com-

municating with people.

Flexible working

Another element that characterizes Julian’s

day at the offi ce is that the offi ce has lost much

of its importance as a daily working space.

Possibly due to the improved possibilities of

communication through the mobile phone

and e-mail, employees no longer think it’s

necessary to spend the entire day at the of-

fice. Instead, they work at home, share a desk

at the offi ce with co-workers and work there

only when they need to be there; or they may

use flexible working locations such as Seats-

2Meet. Because of the world-wide availabil-

ity of broadband internet, Julian and his col-

leagues can still keep in touch about progress

and even schedule online meetings.

The Global Village

e internet is also redefining country bor-

ders and team communication. Because there

is no longer the need for a permanent local-

ized working location, you are not required

to work with people that reside in the same

area or country where you are. e notion of

the ‘Global Village’, a term first coined in e

Gutenberg Galaxy (McLuhan, 1962), envi-

sions the globe as a village tied together by

electronic technology, in which information

can instantaneously flow from one point of

the world to any point of the world. We might

say that this is the internet as we now know it.

e name also implies that the internet brings

people closer together, even though they may

live in different parts of the world. In 2020,with global mobile internet coverage, Julian

may be hundreds of kilometers apart from a

team member, but he will still be able to work

together on projects; no matter where he is,

Julian will be able to communicate and share

and exchange his knowledge with anyone in

the world.



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A

ll these possible connections to

devices and to people through de-

vices offer great opportunities to

us all. However, there are down-

sides to being constantly connected. You may receive dozens of e-mails per day, but how

do you know which ones are most important

and what messages do you actually reply to?

e continuing incoming flow of information

through social networks such as Twitter, Fa-

cebook and LinkedIn often contains less value

to the average working individual. It may even

be counterproductive; the overkill of digital

input can consume a lot of valuable time of a

professional. Especially for flexible profession-

als such as creative and consultants, time is

money; whenever they spend time processing

non-related information, they lose money.

e working environment is becoming in-

creasingly flexible and digital. Paradoxically,

this increase in the amount of communicationbetween people in the digital world doesn’t

automatically lead to more communication

and interaction in the physical world. is

may indicate that when people talk to some-

one through a device, they feel less like they

are talking to that person and are rather in-

teracting with a device, impersonalizing the

experience.

Another issue prevalent in companies with

multiple project teams at work, is awareness

of each other’s progress and results and the

exchange of relevant knowledge. Professionals

may be out of touch with each other and may

not always know what coworkers are doing or

what work these persons have accomplished

in the past. A shame, since a team’s or indi-

vidual’s research could add value to another

person’s project and vice versa. If a team in-

side a company is able to quickly connect to

other teams with knowledge of the subject at

hand, or the ability to assist, the final quality

of the end product and overall speed of the

process may be positively influenced. Less

time is used on discovering and researching

certain aspects that may already have been

explored by others; another person’s expertise

and skills can be of value when e.g. construct-

ing prototypes or analyzing models and codes.Increased awareness may lead to increased co-

operation, resulting in a better overall quality

and a higher effi ciency. Moreover, after a suc-

cessful cooperation new perspectives and op-

portunities may be explored with the people

you cooperated with.

DEPERSONALIZATION ANDINFORMATION OVERKILL

VISION



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F L I G H TF I N A L C O N C E P T



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MEET FLIGHT.FINAL CONCEPT



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STIMULATING A CARING WORK ENVIRONMENT BY PER-

SONALIZING AND IMPROVING RELATIONS BETWEENCOWORKERS. ADDING VALUE BY RAISING AWARENESS OF

WHAT RELEVANT PROJECTS COWORKERS ARE WORKING

ON; HOW THEY PERSONALLY, OR HOW THEIR WORK MAY

CONTRIBUTE TO A PROFESSIONAL’S CAREER OR WORK.

Flight is a communication system with

a physical device placed on the desk of

a 2020 working environment. e per-

sonalization, is a combination between

virtual and physical world; because peo-

ple need to use their own hand-writings,

drawings, etc. to send it to someone, or a

group of people by putting tags on them.

ese tags can be an invitation to work,

or asking someone with relevant exper-

tise or interests for support or collabora-

tion.

With Flight, co-workers in an local work-

ing environment can share important

or relevant information or knowledge,

or setup a meeting without getting dis-

tracted from their work. ey don’t need

to do an extra work actually. When they

need a help, or when they want to share

something, the only thing they have to do

is a hand gesture. Take-off to send and

landing gesture for receiving an incom-

ing message.

As we believe that in 2020 touch screens

can take all over a working space, so hav-

ing a touch screen table is going to besomething usual ! like mobile phones that

we all have. Working, drawing, or any

other activities can be transferred com-

pletely from laptops, PC’s, notebooks

and tablets, simply to a big interactive

touchscreen table, that in some aspects

is not good, because people will lose the

personalization part of their lives.

By enabling the hand-writings, instead

of a typed messages, we are giving peo-

ple, the ability to recognize each other,

also from their hand-writings, which is a

physical activity.



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D E S I G N



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TIMELESS ELEGANCE VERSUS

FASHIONABLE AND TRENDY

While designing the exteriorof our prototype we aimed to

make it “future proof”. is

means that we didn’t want to

make it ‘fashionable,’ because a

fashion style usually only lasts

for a certain amount of time

and can therefore appear out-

dated more quickly. is is why

we chose to make a more time-

less design, that relies rather on

general design style than trends.

In order to achieve such a look,

we used the work and guidelines

of German industrial designer

Dieter Rams. As lead designer

at Braun, he designed several

household appliances in the

past century, that still look great

to date. In fact, Apple’s popular

devices designed by Jonathan

Ives, follow Rams’ design guide-

lines. With a purely minimalis-

tic design, however, we felt that

the design may be a bit bland

and less interesting. We de-

cided to set out a challenge for

ourselves to make a minimalis-

tic design that would stand out

in a positive way and would be

more interesting to look at. We

achieved this by making the de-

sign symbolic having an asym-

metrical shape and by making it

out of triangles that were con-

nected to make a whole shape.

WORKING PLACE

Since we were designing in a

work place context, it was pref-

erable to make the product suit-

ed to the environment, in our

case, a work station. To account

for this we took the dimension,the placement and the form into

account.

NON-INTRUSIVE INTEGRA-

TION

Since Flight has been designed

for the working environment,

this means that people are

usually focused on their work

and may not always like to be

disturbed. Taking this into ac-

count, we didn’t want our de-

sign to interfere with the work-

ing atmosphere. We tried to

integrate Flight into the natural

workflow and make it seek at-

tention in a non-intrusive way

by gently pulsating lights that

run over the body of the de-

sign. e user may then decide

to interact with it, or ignore it

after which the notification au-

tomatically disappears. We be-

lieve this is a proper solution for

showing notifications in a natu-

ral and pleasant way.

INTUITIVE INTERACTION

Intuitive interacvvtion and a real

physical presence of the prod-

uct were two of the main fo-

cuses for the design. To achieve

this, we designed the interac-

tion as a hand gesture: a simple



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stroking motion. A notch across the mid-

dle of the design emphasize the stroking

path for the user. Because of the amount

of triangular shapes, the path may oth-

erwise not become completely clear to

them. Nevertheless, the intention for this

product is to indicate and different usersmay choose to interact differently with it.

To do achieve this we placed lights that

light up down the length of the path on

which we wanted the user to stroke. We

also made a “canyon” in our design that

resembled the path. We understand that,

because of the many corners of the shape

a stroking motion may not come to mind

by the user, this is why we wanted to have

a matte finish on the physical object. is

to minimize the association with sharp

object, who usually have a glossy finish.)

SYMBOLIC SHAPES AND METAPHORS

Meaningful symbols stay in people’s

minds for a longer time; they speak for

themselves and make the design more in-

teresting. In order to incorporate a prop-

er symbol it was necessary keep in mind

our overall context and intention: sending

and receiving information. A skyscraper,

DESIGN



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an inspiration gained from the sci-fi videogame

series Mass Effect, was one of the first ideas; it is

a working place but is also connected to the sky,

where most of the communication nowadays goes

through (wireless networks, radio signals etc.).e

other major ideas was an airport’s airstrip with di-

recting lights for incoming and outgoing aircraft; a

symbolic way to represent the sending and receiv-

ing of information. e triangular tessellated shape

was inspired by the Blob, one of Eindhoven’s iconic

structures. Combining a skyscraper, an airstrip and

the tessellated shape of the Blob, we incorporate

ambition, achievement, speed and progress as well

as a part of Eindhoven.

DESIGN



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P

ersonal designs should allow for easy

and frequent interaction. Like a soft

teddy bear or a person’s car, these are

very personal things with positive as-

sociations in daily life.

Virtual versus Physical

Designing for 2020 requires thinking about

people’s behavior, their way of living and

working in 2020. We concluded that in the

future things will be more digital. Work and

social life will become increasingly virtual. In

order to remain in touch with the real world,

physical presence is an important aspect.

Keeping in mind the fact that people work ina digital environment in mind, we chose for

a physical object with physical interaction as

the main focal point for the design. It enables

people to interact with their social and digital

working environment.

Metaphors

We wanted people to recognize the interac-

tion and associate themselves with it, leading

to the decision to focus on familiar interac-tions associated with the working place and

the metaphor of our design (airstrip). When

people recognize familiar objects or systems

in a product, they may more quickly under-

stand the working of the product. We also

wanted to associate the interaction with the

physical action of sending someone a note.

We believe this is more personal than receiv-

ing an email or some other means of digital

communication; the latter may feel more like

interacting with an impersonal system instead

of interacting with a person. In order to give

it this feeling, the user is invited to physically

write a note to a group of persons and send itby posting a stamp, representing the different

kind of areas of expertise, on it.

Natural Integration into the Workflow

e design has been designed for use in

a professional working environment. For

professionals, time is a valuable asset and at

the same short in stock. erefore, we tried

to integrate our design in the workflow of

the professionals/creative professionals. Toaccomplish this we created a non-intrusive

design and an interaction as minimal and

straightforward as possible. We included the

interactions and gestures people already use

to work with computers and touch screens to

make the experience as intuitive as possible.

We also set clear limitations to the interac-

tion a user can have with our design as to not

waste time when too many possibilities are

present.

Touching the Future

It’s still uncertain what the future might

bring, but we conclude that a touch screen

based interface will be implemented more

often throughout the years, which justifies

our decision to implement the touch screen

in the design of our interactions.

HUMAN INTERACTION WITH THE SYSTEM

FINAL CONCEPT



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Want to ask somebody for help just slide a paper out!

Write something on the virtual paper

Post a Stamp on it

And send it away!

INTERACTION: ASKING FOR HELP



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The lights are turning on, you got mail!

Lets take a look..

Add comments with post-its by pressing on the paper

That should help him, so send it back!!

,




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I got mail, someone replied!

Lets take a look..

I should meet him! *CLICK




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The lights are turning on, you got mail!

No time? Just send it back where it came from.

,

ere it came from.

INTERACTION:IGNORING



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TECHNOLOGY



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Light Sequence( and the metaphor)

Using glowing LEDs in 2 rows is a good meta-

phor for the lights that can be found at airstrips

at airports. It displays the taking off and landing

of messages. To achieve this, we connected light

sensors to an Arduino UNO as motion input

for the LEDs. When the sensors detect a move-

ment on the Flight from the top part to the bot-

tom, the light sequence will lighten up in the

same direction. In reverse, if the sensors detect

a bottom to top movement, the light sequence

will also lighten up following the movement.

Sensors

Different kind of sensors have been discussed in

the research phase, in order to find out which

one would fit our concept the most.

One of the options we had was a ribbon sen-

sor, which was also possible for us to make. A

ribbon sensor can measure the position of an

object (such as a finger) on a long strip. Howev-

er, this approach required direct touch, mean-

ing that the top part of the sensor could not becovered; this meant that we would be unable to

create a nice looking surface with e.g. paint or

another material. Using photocells is an option

for detecting the shadow made by a moving

hand. For making it work, two photocells were

used and have been placed in the analog inputs

of the Arduino. If sensor number one, placed at

the top of Flight, senses the shadow before the

photocell number two, placed at the bottom,

the light sequence would start glowing from top

to bottom and other way around.

UI/UX

e User Interface and the User Experience are

designed in Flash. We chose Flash because of

the possibility to interface with JAVA and PHP

that makes it easier to communicate with the

Arduino.



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Can the problem be solved

by yourself?

Is sb. available in tagged

categories in system?

System sends out request

Is the Blob inbox of the

receiver stated as “avail-

able”? (≤ 5 request in

queue)

Request appears in

receiver’s Blob

Does receiver take/slide

down the request?

Request appears on

receiver’s screen

START:

SYSTEMFLOWCHART



33

Give feedback to the ques-

tion

Solve problem

Problem solved

Take request out of the system

Report to sender, that

nobody available in system

Want to change categories

(to related categories)?

Change category

Wait until > 5 request in

queue

Request wait in blob until

receiver take it

Receiver read the request Does decide receiver to give

feedback?

Give feedback to the ques-

tion

Send back feedback to sender

with possibility for discussions

(time slot)

System send feedback to

sender’s Blob

Feedback shows up on

sender’s table (as notication)

Does sender open up the

notication?

Sender reads feedback

Was the feedback helpful

and useful?

Receiver declines therequest

System counts the amount

of declines

Is the number of declines =

number of send request?

Sender receives message:

“no feedback for request”

Irrelevant

feedback

Unclear, needexplaination

Deletefeedback?

Contact

receiver?

Take request out of the

system?

Send appointment

request to receiver

Reason

Forward request to others?

Send request to suggested

people

END:



34

USER FOCUS AND PERSPECTIVE

FINAL CONCEPT



35

The intention of Flight is to break

the barrier of communication

between co-workers in a (creative)company. It should help them to

address questions and get feedback. In

2020 the world will be almost entirely

digitalized, the goal during the whole

designing process is to keep the user in

focus and try to simplify the process of

communication and at the same time

also enhance the physical experience.

Using the device, user should have the

feeling of really sending the message into

the air. On the other side of the system

the receiver should also get the feeling of

something landing on the ramp, to have

a consistent experience. Physicality is a

main focus in the design.

User Testing with QR-Codes onChips

After having the full concept in mind, we

want to know more about interactions.

In a small user test using chips with QR

codes we wanted to find out, if people

are willing to share their opinions and

questions via technology and also if they

are willing to receive them via technol-

ogy. e purpose using the QR codes is

not to directly test out any technology

but it’s more a medium to test out the

functionality and if people are com-

fortable using devices for sharing. e

outcome was unfortunately not positive,because users are not motivated enough

to use their QR-code app on their smart-

phones. Since there are at least three

steps one has to make until reach the

final step, the threshold is too high. As

well, it’s less interesting to visit

Touch motion

inking of touchscreens people mostly

associate with movements and interac-

tion with digital devices. is was also

the intension for the design. Assuming in

2020 working environments is all digital-

ized and digital technology belongs to

peoples’ daily life. As mentioned above,

we want to focus on the physicality of

using a device, which helps employees

communicate with each other and in

touch motion we saw the perfect pos-

sibility to achieve this. Like a commontouchscreen on a smartphone or tablet

PC, one single movement triggers a

whole process and finishes a whole task.



36



37



38



39

EXPLORATION&

R E S E A R C H



40

After the briefing

Cees Donkers hadprovided us, we

were still in doubt

about the purpose of the pro-

ject and what was expected

of us. After due considera-

tion, it was decided to go out

into the city and explore

some of the locations that

had been mentioned in the

presentation. We expected

that by doing so, we wouldget a better understanding of

the project and would gradu-

ally form our own vision and

take on the project. As well,

going outside may be more

insightful and interesting

than just staying inside the

university building; it would

make more sense to design

something for a context if we

would actually go visit thecontext and get a feeling of

what opportunities exist.

Locations of Interest

In order to find out more

about the repurposing of

buildings, we went to Usine.

Usine is a restaurant café

in the former Philips fac-

tory in Eindhoven, in one of

Eindhoven’s characteristic

buildings: de ‘Witte Dame’,

or the White Lady. To gain

insights into flexible work-

ing, or the ‘New Working’, we

paid a visit to Seats2Meet.

Seats2Meet is a decentralized

organization that offers free

seats and tables for people

to work and collaborate, as

well as premium rooms and

lounges. Another privateinitiative investigated was

Little Mountain, a platform

for creative professionals in

the Strijp-S area; again, this

was an example of repurpos-

ing buildings. Finally, we

wanted to know more about

Eindhoven itself. We decided

to visit the city as tourists,

people who visit the city for

the first time in their lives, totry to find out what Eind-

hoven ‘is’.

Intriguing Aspects

Visiting Usine proved to be

mostly interesting from an

aesthetic point of view. e

mixture of the functional

factory structure with 21st

EXPLORATION & RESEARCH



41

century design made for a characteristic

look. However, we deemed that the pur-

pose of Usine - suggested in the project

briefing to be a meeting place – was not

achieved. What we saw, instead, was amore traditional café where people drink

something with a person they already

know, or read a newspaper while sipping

their coffee.

Seats2Meet was a more interesting

visit. e freemium business model

allows everyone to join in and when peo-

ple like it enough, they may pay money

for the premium lounges. However, the

free visitors have to pay with knowledge;

they have to be open for encounters with

new people who ask for collaboration or

support. e proprietary social network

plays an important role in this matter.

Little Mountain proved to be one the

most relevant trips. e people working

in the facility Little Mountain provides,

work really flexible. e company itself

also proved to be an interesting concept;

it offers an offi ce space like other compa-

nies, but distinguishes itself through its

extensive network in different sectors of

the economy as well as the coaching and

expertise it offers.e ‘city trip’ to Eindhoven was less

useful, however. We took many pictures

and tried to analyze the city; however,

soon we found out that it is very hard

to ‘label’ a city; cities are mostly defined

by their citizens and each inhabitant is

different. Overall, the people see them-

selves mostly as Brabanders (inhabitants

of the Noord-Brabant province), enjoy-

ing the good life and the typical Dutch

gezelligheid. We also noticed that Eind-

hoven is a city constant in motion. New

buildings are constantly built and there

are many new buildings in the city, that

through their more functional, minimal-

ist aesthetic match the old industrial

complexes Philips once owned.

Impact

Going out and exploring showed to us



42

that we wanted to continue the project in the

direction of the offi ce and working locations

of 2020. We also gained valuable insights

when talking to people working at Seats-

2Meet and Little Mountain, mostly related to

the issue of the awareness of people’s exper-

tise and skills. Going out and exploring has

given us a context to work in and an idea of

what problems and opportunities exist within

that context. is may not have happened

as well had we remained stuck to our desks.

However, we visited most places only once

or a few times. It may be better next time tocome there more often, so that our idea of

everything within the context is even better.

Concluding, however, going out and explore

gave us a direction to work in and helped us

shape our vision for the project.



43



44

The development of our vision was a

slow, gradual process. Using the tripsto Seats2Meet and Little Mountain, we

got an idea of which direction of the

project we wanted to go into, also, several vi-

sionary aspects became apparent. Combined

with different idea generation ideas such as

Associative inking and re-interpreting the

project description, five visionary areas be-

came clearer to us. We applied these to our

concepts for the Mid-Term Exhibition, which

were made for the context of a working space.

Eindhoven in the Cloud

Combining the digital world with the ‘real’,

physical world – so far, interaction is only

possible with one of the two worlds and not a

combination. How do people ‘live’ in the digi-

tal world and how can the gap between the two

worlds in daily life be bridged? What is Ein-

dhoven in the digital world? Could a ‘virtual

city’ be established online, can parts of the city

be augmented by having online counterparts?is also includes the notion of ‘global village’.

Borders between regions, countries and cities

are fading away because of the internet, that

allows people to communicate with each oth-

er and see each other without having to be in

the same physical location. What impact does

this have on a traditional city?

‘Outlaw’ Businesses

With the rise of the internet and the avail-ability of cheap high-tech equipment, people

are now capable of achieving feats without

the technical labs and resources they would

have required before. Now, startups can also

be free of the traditional investment compa-

nies; initiatives like Kickstarter allows people

to get funded by their potential customer base.

Maybe innovation will now mostly come from

the small companies that roam the digital

DEVELOPING

OUR VISION



45

Wild West; the ‘Outlaw Businesses’, no longer

tied to the traditional big multinationals that

used to dominate the market. e Kickstarterinitiative ‘Pebble Watch’, amongst others, is

a good example; also Little Mountain can be

seen as such a company, being only privately

funded, sustainable and independent from

others. What opportunities exist in this area

and how will business continue to develop in

light of this trend?

Open Knowledge in an Open World

e internet allows for an unprecedentedexchange of knowledge and information. In

the spirit of Open Source, where free distri-

bution and access to an end product’s design

and implementation details is promoted,

Open Knowledge is the thinking of making all

kinds of information and knowledge accessi-

ble and free for every person. Nowadays in-

formation becomes an expensive good in the

society, leading to inequality between people.

An Open World indicates a similar approach.

With the immense growth of the importance

of the Internet, every corner in our world is

connected among each other, evolving into an

Open World.

YOU™

e arrival of social networks gives people

the opportunity to create a profile of your-

self and stay in touch with the people around

you. It also allows people to shape their own

online identity. Who are you online, how do

you position yourself online? With the lack of

face-to-face conversation on social network

sites, several things happen. You can reinvent

yourself, become someone new; more well-

thought replies can be given in a conversation,

yet at the same time, the meaning of words

may become more diffi cult when the emotion

of the other person cannot be seen. Branding

yourself suddenly becomes important and the

possibility to brand yourself has become avail-

able to everyone with an internet connection.What is the best way to make use out of these

opportunities and what other possibilities ex-

ist?

e feedback we received on our concepts for

the Mid-Term Exhibition concerned mostly

the personal aspects and meeting in real-life;

concepts should allow for more personal ex-

pression and interaction with people. Also,

the documentary Making Cities: de stad vande toekomst (Oey, 2012) showed to us that it

is important for people to be able to organize

themselves and leave room for their own in-

terpretation. We used this information to fur-

ther shape our ideas to the vision we have now

and we built Flight to embody this vision.



46

Project Briefing and Pressure Cooker

In the beginning, our client, Cees Donkers,

explained the project context and clarified his

needs to us, directly afterwards we completed

a project in a week as a pressure cooker.

Bridge

In a world that is going to be completely digi-

tal, many aspects of working together will be

vanished. And also there are many problems

with that. For example, if two groups from

two different countries are trying to work

together, the problems will be time difference,

cultural difference, etc. With having this in

mind, we came up with a solution for this andwe called it Bridge. Bridges are the rooms in

different cities of different countries, that can

sync their information via internet. When

you enter the Bridge, you have to setup the

configuration, like setting the location you’re

trying to work with. e Bridge will sync

the time and the weather and immediately

changes the environment of the room to the

distant location so that the people who are

inside the Bridge can have a clear idea about

the situation on the other side of the conver-sation. Both Bridges in two locations, have

an interactive touch screen, and a big screen

attached to one side of it (like the picture

above) so that the people can get the feeling

of actually sitting and working together.

Exploring and Researching

After the explanations of our client about

our project, we went to have a closer look

to Eindhoven, and all the places that Cees

Donkers spoke of, like Usine, Seats2meet and

Little mountain; in order to have a clear idea

about the city DNA that he seemed like very

focused on.

Brainstorming and Shaping Our VisionIn order to make the project report more

clear to ourselves and also take our vision out

of that, we did multiple sessions of brain-

storming and collaborative thinking; this cost

us quite some time, but at the end we divided

the project description into different areas

considering our vision:

• Eindhoven in the cloud

• YOU™

• Open knowledge in an open world• Out-law business

Exploration of Visionary Elements and Indi-

vidual Concepts

We began to try out the different areas of our

vision on the project, then we decided to have

four different concepts during the mid-term

exhibition to get as much as feedback as pos-

sible. Also, this was an opportunity for us to

user-test our concepts/prototypes.

Creating the Final Concept

After the mid-term exhibition we started to

discuss about the feedback we received and

try a combination of our concepts or start a

new one.

e decision was made and we started a new

design cycle, which led us to our current con-

cept with the code name of Flight, inspired by

DESIGN CYCLE



47

the shape of the Blob structure in Eindhoven,

combined with the gestures for landing and

take-off at an airport.

Experimenting with Shapes and Materials

We started the making procedure and try-

ing out the shapes we had in mind and wewanted to get inspired from different shapes,

for that, we went to clay room and started

making different shapes:

Other shapes that we tried out at our space

and Vertigo:

After these shapes, another brainstorming

session started for the shape, the result was

the current shape which has been tried by

clay first and then paper and 3D print and so

on :

3D printing was disappointing, because it

didn’t work out. e first attempt was at

ProtoSpace in Utrecht and the other one

at the ID department. Both attempts failed

unfortunately, because of the complexity of

the shape.

After that we had no other choices but to

make the shape out of cardboard, paper and

plastic:



48

Introduction to the project

Smart Cities 2020 from Kees

Donkers & pressure cooker

Exploring & researching: the

context & existing examples

of collaborative working

environments

Brainstorming session

based on ndings from

explorating phase:

- Open Knowledge in

an Open World

- Outlaw Business

- Eindhoven in the Cloud

- YOU™

Decision making: split up

to individual concepts

until mid-term exhibition

Four

in mi

- Em

- Flyi

- 360

- Loc

Process The following graphic explains the process of getting to the nal prototype and design.

Making

Exploring

Envisioning

Thinking

I&C F&S IT SCA UFP

AnqiBramJort

Pouya

AnqiBramJort

Pouya

AnqiBram

Pouya

AnqiBramJort

Pouya

AnqiBram

Pouya

Competency development The following graphic explais the development in each competency area.



49

dierent concepts

d-term exhibition:

Share

ngWall

° Conference Cam

alnet a.o

Extracting from four

concepts the main

focus:

- connecting

- social

- knowledge sharing

Many dierent kind of

brainstorming sessions

based on extracted focus

Exploring forms and

shapes with dierent

kinds of materials and

prototyping

Flight

DMM DBP DRP T&C

AnqiBramJort

Pouya

AnqiBramJort

PouyaJort

Anqi



50



51

PERSONAL

REFLECTIONS



52

In this report I only want to give a short sum-

mary of what I have learned during the project

and show a more complete view of my pro-

gress during the project in my showcase.

I chose to make list of do’s and don’ts to show

you what I have learned during the project.

THE DO’S

Design Cycles

During this semester our group wanted to do

a non linear design process. is meant that

we divided the semester in design cycles. Each

design cycle stood for a new design process.

By doing this I wasn’t stuck anymore in one

design cycle for the whole semester. is ena-

bled me to see my designs from another per-

spective, the perspective of learning tools. By

being able to start from scratch at one point in

the semester I was able to reflect upon my de-

sign. It also helped me use different design ap-

proaches and using a different angle for every

design.

An Individual Part

We decided as a group to include an individual

design cycle. I like to do this for a change to

see how my own process works without inter-

ference of other and how I could improve this

process. I also found it really interesting to see

that even when working together on the same

project everybody had completely different

ideas. I also found it helpful to analyze the dif-

ferences and similarities in these designs.

e Brainstorming

During the project we tried out different

brainstorming techniques. I noticed how oth-

er people brainstormed and what process and

techniques fit me best.

Working on paper

During the second half of the semester. I

set out a goal for myself to work more in an

analog fashion. is, to help me develop my

skills outside of the digital realm and transfer

them to paper. is also helped me compare

between productivity for using paper and us-

ing the computer.

Going out

During our project we often went to differ-

ent locations for various reasons. ese little

“breaks” helped me to put my design decisions

in perspective and gain a holistic view of my

design. I want to implement this pro-active

attitude even more in my next project. As to

help me focus and gain valuable experience

JORT BAND

PERSONAL REFLECTION



53

from the “outside world”.

e Team

e team I had during this semester was

cultural diverse. is was a thing I hadhoped for while picking the project. is

was one of the ways I wanted to develop

Social Cultural Awareness. I think I did

this by asking a lot of questions to my for-

eign team members about their cultures.

Synthesizing

During this project synthesized more

than my previous semester. I found that

synthesizing helps me a lot in my design

process. Next semester however I want to

do even more synthesizing to aid my de-

sign decisions and sometimes even help

speed up making decisions.

THE DON’TS

Getting stuck on decisions

When designing with the project group

I noticed that a lot of time was spend

on making decisions. e more time we

spend on making a decision the harder it

became. is is something I want to avoid

during my next project by setting dead-

lines and basing consensus on not disa-

greeing rather than agreeing.

Not doing a final user test

When I started the semester one of thething that I really wanted to do was a fi-

nal user-test. In the end of the semester

however, we weren’t able to do this. is

is why I want to put pressure on this in

my next project, by making it the final

goal for the project, instead of the usual;

delivering a prototype.

Side Projects

For the Smart Cities project we didn’t

only had to deliver a project, we also had

to deliver an extra deliverable, the Atlas.

is “side project” wasn’t really beneficial

to our project and was quite time con-

suming. is left me with less time and

motivation to work on the main project.

is is why next time I pick a project I

will pay extra attention to the final deliv-

erables how this will fit in the project and

how it will fit in my development.



54

POUYA BOZORGZADEH

PERSONAL REFLECTION

Idea Generation:

In my opinion, the longest procedure was the

time that we wanted to get our vision from

the project description, based on the needs

of our client and stakeholders. We found theproject so broad, so we had to divide it in dif-

ferent areas, so that we could continue.

Also we spent lots of days making different

mind-maps and brainstorming with differ-

ent techniques. So we went out of schedule

because of them. ey are necessary steps

for designing process, but knowing that how

much time you should spend, and how muchtime you actually are spending on this step

are also important.

Team-work and communication:

Being critical is good many times, it keeps

that group members think to come up with

better ideas or improve the current idea they

have already; but being critical all the time is

something that de-motivates the members of the group after a long time, and puts limits on

their thought; specially when the friendship

between the group members are more than it

should be.

We were mostly a combination of four indi-

viduals, working in a group; because of that,

we were really slow in our group work, but

we used to speed up by dividing tasks and

working on our tasks separately. at was not

because of the lack of communication or hav-

ing problems while working in a group, but

because of too much criticism that we all had.Making procedure and trying out:

Although we had some user-tests for the

ideas we had (like the QR codes), I still miss

the final user-test that we could do if we had

more time.

e good points of our work was that we

almost tried out all the ideas we had, like get-

ting separated for the mid-term exhibition,and working on the different visions we got

from the project description and also mak-

ing different shapes for the Blob to see what

shape exactly works for it. So this was the

part we were good at.



55

ANQI LI

PERSONAL REFLECTION

Overall opinion.

Looking back on the semester and our

achievements for the project, I am satisfied

with our overall accomplishments and the

final prototype. Using our experiences fromthe last semester and starting from the aware-

ness stage we ran through different design

cycles and we can finally present our design

and a working prototype. For me, the result

is satisfying but the process wasn’t. We had

problems at certain points, but in the end

we could always find solutions. In my opin-

ion the project itself was quiet good, butthe teamwork was sometimes problematic

and the progress slow. It can be described as

stages one need to walk through a labyrinth:

preparing for going through the maze (re-

searching); entering it and trying to find the

way out (idea generation); and finally finding

the exit and walking towards it (prototyping).

Process, problems and solutions.

In the research phase we were very active and

productive. We went out to explore Eind-

hoven and search for design opportunities

and were trying to get as much information

as we could. Afterwards we dived into the

idea generation phase, which was chaotic.

In brainstorming sessions we could produce

many ideas but we had diffi culties in idea

selection and working out the idea. In a laby-

rinth full of dead-ends we were wandering

around and desperately searching for the exit

but we just couldn’t find it. Sometimes therewere long discussions without results lead-

ing to more sessions and more discussions.

We lost a lot of time, which was originally

planned for the prototyping phase. But since

we knew what to do, making the prototype

went quiet well.

I think the main reason of our problem was

the lack of a team leader and the right usage

of time. Each of us has been taken the role as

a leader in different situations and encour-

ages other to continue, but we didn’t have

one person who was taking care of time and

speak up and decide, when we had diffi culties

continuing. is resulted in ineffi ciency and

loss of valuable time. Especially in a team like

ours, where the individuals has great ideas

and knows what to do, but everyone is a little

critical and stubborn in one way or another,

a team leader is needed in order to progress.

I am sure, if we used the time effi ciently, we

could have done the project much better.

Personal growth.

In this group I learned that it is necessary to



56

stand up and be a leader. I am not the

leader type of person by nature, be-

cause I don’t prefer staying in focus too

much. But in some (teamwork) situa-

tions it’s important to step out of one’sown comfort zone, especially in times

with a lot of discussions and no out-

come. Being a leader doesn’t mean that

one has to decide everything and the

others should follow. It’s more about

showing direction, keeping the discus-

sion in the point and not losing focus.

I’m really glad that I could experience

the problems we had; I could learn a

lot about myself and improve myself in

that sense.



57

T

he project is finished. e last things

are being prepared for the exhibi-

tion, the report will soon be ready

for print. Looking back at what I and

my team members have done this semester,I can’t help but feel a sense of accomplish-

ment and satisfaction. I as a person and we all

together have come a long way since we met

on the first day of the semester.

When I began the semester, I had achieved

some basic awareness of me as a designer and

the design process. What was most impor-

tant to me, was that I learned to go out of the

university and explore. Doing so, the inspira-

tion starts flowing and I can achieve a bet-

ter understanding of the potential users and

the context. e group and the advice of our

coach allowed for more freedom to explore

multiple directions, as showcased evidently

during the Mid-Term Exhibition. e op-

portunity for me to create my own concepts

based on my interpretation of the project

and my vision at the time, proved to be very

helpful. e different feedback I gathered was

very helpful, not only for the project, but also

for any future exhibition and way of creating

concepts. e design cycles we employed in

the process were refreshing, although going

back to the drawing board after the Exhibi-

tion proved to be a bit demotivating. We

were still stuck in our way of thinking we

had for the Exhibition, instead of being able

to let go and ‘kill our darlings’. is led toan indecisiveness that lasted for quite some

time. I stepped up sometimes to propose to

just make one idea, however, I failed to do

so effectively. My suggestion to go to Seats-

2Meet for a change of context proved to be

successful, though. e different environment

worked refreshing and allowed us to shape

our final vision on the project and our final

concept. Looking back at the design process

as a whole, we may have researched and ex-

plored too much, which cut the time we had

to construct prototypes. I may want to limit

this time in the future. However, going out of

the university is one of the most important

things I learned, along with the learned fact

that no student seems to adhere to a planning

(including me).

I found out a lot as well about my way of

working. I have the tendency to take over

work others do, when I see that I could do

it as well. Combined with my perfectionism

and the will to design everything, from docu-

ments to sketches, this meant I was becoming

BRAM DE VOGEL

PERSONAL REFLECTION



58

overworked. When my coach confront-

ed me with this, I decided to change

my working style. I stopped volunteer-ing for all work and although I’m still

perfectionistic, I now know when to

stop perfecting something. I also found

out that I am not the idea-generating

person. I usually generate less ideas

than my peers, although when I have

an idea, they may prove to be good.

Finally, I am satisfied with the endresult we have now, mostly because

the vision behind the concept has been

deemed solid by our coach, and by the

client in a meeting. However, I do think

that overall finish of the prototype

could have been better. Also, the lack

of a final user test is something I think

should have been done. e next time,

I will make sure that there will be more

user tests and that construction on

prototypes begins earlier.



59



THANK YOU FOR READINGREPORT DESIGN Bram de Vogel

3D Model Jort Band

3D RENDERS Jort Band (3DSMax) Bram de Vogel (Cinema 4D)

Articles written are the collective work of all team members.

Documents

B1.2 Report - FLIGHT (Project Smart Cities: Internet Cafe 2020)