EcoSystem Investigation
Participatory design project with IVN Veldhoven-Eindhoven-Vessem, Nieuw Zwanenburg, Phood Farm and Brabants Landschap to enable Sharing Non-Human Appreciation with a wider public to support strengthening humanity’s nature-connectedness.
Sharing Non-Human Appreciation
Exploration on how to design for experiencing and sharing appreciation for nature beyond Stadsakkers to motivate sustainable behaviour.
Dirt Stories
Sensorial ethnographic probes for exploring the role of dirt in relation to appreciation and sustainability at a local food-growing community.
Element
Futuristic rainwear to bring people together and enjoy outside more in the rain.
Extracurricular Projects
MOVA: Open source Tools for More-than-human VALUES IN design education
As student assistant, I created a teaching activity around DIY sheets for the ecological probes in the Sharing Non-Human Appreciation project. I contributed to developing a new teaching activity utilising tangibility and embodiment to improve students understanding of abstract more-than-human concepts. This resulted in Experiencing the Web: A redesign activity that engages students in representing connected actors in an ecosystem and feeling how a design impacts it, to guide them in making improvements.
This work gave me more insight in the educational perspective and increased my consideration of attention spans, information overloads, etc. when designing. I deepened my understanding of more-than-human design and learned to make crochet patterns and other DIY materials.
Click here for more information: https://morethanhumandesign.eu
summer school eram: joyful & caring technology futures
I participated in the summer school joyful & caring technology futures, organized by Escola Universitària ERAM (University of Girona, Spain) as part of the Erasmus+ Blended Intensive Programme (BIP). It concerned human-nature interaction design: How can humans enjoy nature and how can we also care for it in that action?
The program involved a hike in the mountains of Rasos de Peguera to experience enjoying nature and gather inspiration, followed by processing data, ideation and looking from a more-than-human care perspective. My group developed RelatECO: An app with AI that allows for conversations with non-humans when taking a picture of them. These conversations include information to learn about the non-humans, questions for help (e.g. giving some water), or suggestions for richer interaction through senses. In this way, it allows for a joyful and caring human-nature interaction.
In this summer school, I learned more about the motivational use of playful elements, and developed my teamwork skills in working in interdisciplinary and multicultural groups. I stepped out of my comfortzone by embarking on this adventure alone, which boosted my confidence and widened my network.
Smaller Projects
Design for behavioural change: Cowlivia
In this course, I learned about different psychological theories and frameworks involving behaviour change and applying them in a design process. We created Cowlivia, an app to support people in their journey to eat less meat by providing guidance in planning to cook a vegetarian recipe.
Researching the future everyday: Future X
In this course, I learned about different approaches to create speculative designs and how to engage people in those stories (e.g. roleplay). I learned about the concept of prefigurative politics, which further inspired my work and my vision. It is an idea that gives hope: Starting to already act differently in the old system to inspire a transition into a better one.
The project Future X involved posing as a company that travels from 02038 to 02023 to recruit people to work for them. They present themselves as successful futuristic company, but keep a dark secret about why they need to recruit people from the past…
Unexpected material engagement: Grimeoire
In this course, I explored the relations we have with our natural waste and how we care for nature. I became familiar with feminist care ethics and material driven design processes. I learned to process natural waste to design care products, resulting in a witchcraft inspired design.
Learn how to make your own Grimeoire products: https://grimeoire.wordpress.com/
Matter of transformation: Inclusivitea: A Process of Intertwining Pragmatism and Design
In this course, I developed different tea sets based on pragmatism to learn about the theory of pragmatism and developing skills to turn abstract concepts into a design. I became more aware of the impact I can make with my designs.
Tea set inspired by William James’s Pragmatism’s chapter What Pragmatism Means.
This tea set allows for making tea in different ways all at the same place. When people experience these different definitions of what they consider tea, their definition can widen. Similarly James explains how truth (what we say about reality) develops.
Tea set inspired by William James’s Pragmatism’s chapter The One and The Many.
This iteration of the tea set includes a tablecloth with a pathway and tea stains for the different kinds of teas that can be made with it. It highlights the practical differences (pluralism) between the different kind of teas through labelling them with their making process, while the entire design eventually strives for bringing people from different perspectives to the one place.
Tea set inspired by William James’s Pragmatism’s chapter Pragmatism and Humanism.
This last iteration on the design allowed people to be creative and create their own tea path. The participants can express their paths through coloured crayons and spilling beeswax to keep certain places unstained (batik technique). This playful co-creation allows people to shape and share their tea ritual and enrich each participant’s perspective through a shared experience.
Constructive design research: material study for speculative flooded campus
In this course, I approached the research-through-design process from a material exploration perspective combined with a speculative scenario.
Luna Snelder 