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- Raphael Kim
Raphael Kim
Postdoctoral researcher - Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
Supervisors
Prof. Dr. Elvin Karana
Raphael is a postdoctoral researcher and designer engaged in critical explorations of bio-technology in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI): Through making, growing, writing, and speculating, Raphael strives to continue unpacking the social and cultural implications of considering living agents – namely microbes and DNA – as computational materials for interaction.
Following his Master’s in Design Interactions from Royal College of Art in London, Raphael gained his PhD from Queen Mary University of London. His thesis (2020), titled Effects of Microbial Integration on Player Experiences of Hybrid Biological Digital Games, investigated ways in which distinct microbial materiality could be harnessed into design processes towards enhancing playful experiences of human-computer interaction. Outcomes of the research, along with his latest studies on viruses and DNA, have been published at major international academic venues (e.g., ACM CHI), where he plays an integral role in the growth of Biological-HCI and Microbe-HCI; an emerging set of communities with a special penchant (and curiosity) for artefacts with molecular, organic, microbial turns.
Raphael has previously taught at the Royal College of Art in London, serving as a visiting lecturer for MA. Design Interactions and MA. Innovation Design Engineering, delivering modules, workshops, and tutorials with special focus on biotechnology and biodesign. Utilizing his prior professional laboratory experience – which includes working as full-time research assistant for Roche Pharmaceuticals R&D (Switzerland), Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (Japan), and Baum Lab at Imperial College (UK) – Raphael brings an added, first-hand biotechnological grounding and insight towards supporting and leading his design students.
Current Project
EVOLVING MATERIALITY OF DNA AND IMPLICATIONS FOR INTERACTION DESIGN
With advances in technology, storage of digital artefacts as DNA molecules is likely to become mainstream in the near future. Yet whilst the emerging technology is poised to address the environmental issues surrounding excess global data production, the social and cultural aspects of how we would use the technology remain largely unexplored.
This research project aims to address this gap, using material-focused approaches. It first acknowledges the fact that the mechanics of the emerging technology would shift our current material understandings of DNA: Not only is DNA a naturally occurring molecule that carry genetic information packaged within living cells, DNA can also be synthetic, a carrier of digital information, and embeddable within both the living and non-living artefacts. The qualitative research will unpack the new materiality of DNA in further detail, and identify its potential implications on how we might design and experience DNA artefacts.
Publications
Kim, R., Linehan, C., & Pschetz, L. (2022). Navigating Imaginaries of DNA-Based Digital Data Storage. In Proceedings of the 2022 CHI conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 1-15). https://doi.org/10.1145/3491102.3501911
Kim, R., Pschetz, L., Linehan, C., Lee, C.H., & Poslad, S. (2021). Archives in DNA: Workshop Exploring Implications of an Emerging Bio-Digital Technology through Design Fiction. In Academic Mindtrek 2021 (pp. 1-4). https://doi.org/10.1145/3464327.3464966
Kim, R. (2021). Virus as Quasi-Living Bio-Material for Interaction Design: Practical, Ethical, and Philosophical Implications. In Extended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-7). https://doi.org/10.1145/3411763.3451770
Kim, R., Pataranutaporn, P., Forman, J., Lee, S.A., Riedel-Kruse, I.H., Alistar, M., Vasquez, E.S.L., Vega, K., van Dierendonck, R., Gome, G., Zuckerman, O., Vujic, A., Kong, D.S., Maes, P., Ishii, H., Sra, M., & Poslad, S. (2021). Microbe-HCI: Introduction and direction for growth. In Extended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-4). https://doi.org/10.1145/3411763.3450408
Välk, S., Chen, Y., Kalossaka, L., Kim, R., Mougenot, C., Pschetz, L., Ramirez-Figueroa, C., Sayuti, N.A.A., & Sommer, B. (2021, December). Narratives in Biodesign: Bridging Methods, Processes and Tools. IASDR Conference 2021. Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
Gough, P., Forman, J., Pataranutaporn, P., Hepburn, L-A., Ramirez-Figueroa, C., Cooper, C., Vujic, A., Kong, D.S., Kim, R., Maes, P., Ishii, H., Sra, M., & Ahmadpour, N. (2021). Speculating on biodesign in the future home. In Extended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-5). https://doi.org/10.1145/3411763.3441353
Kim, R., Thomas, S., van Dierendonck, R., Bryan-Kinns, N., & Poslad, S. (2020). Working with nature's lag: Initial design lessons for slow biotic games. In International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (pp. 1-4). https://doi.org/10.1145/3402942.3409790
Kim, R., Thomas, S., van Dierendonck, R., Wood, C., & Poslad, S. (2020). Toward growable computer games: insights from biotic game ideation workshops. Interactions, 27(2), 82-85. https://doi.org/10.1145/3378563
Kim, R. (2020). DNA as digital data storage: Opportunities and challenges for HCI. In International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (pp. 225-232). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60700-5_29
Kim, R., & Poslad, S. (2019). Growable, invisible, connected toys: twitching towards ubiquitous bacterial computing. In Proceedings of the Halfway to the Future Symposium 2019 (pp. 1-9). https://doi.org/10.1145/3363384.3363387
Kim, R., van Dierendonck, R., & Poslad, S. (2019). Moldy ghosts and yeasty invasions: Glitches in hybrid bio-digital games. In Extended Abstracts of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-6). https://doi.org/10.1145/3290607.3312895
Kim, R., & Poslad, S. (2019). Augmentable experiences in hybrid biological digital games. Acoustic Space Journal, 17, 165-173.
Kim, R., & Poslad, S. (2019). The thing with E. coli: Highlighting opportunities and challenges of integrating bacteria in IoT and HCI. arXiv preprint arXiv:1910.01974. https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.01974
Kim, R., Thomas, S., van Dierendonck, R., Kaniadakis, A., & Poslad, S. (2018). Microbial integration on player experience of hybrid bio-digital games. In International Conference on Intelligent Technologies for Interactive Entertainment (pp. 148-159). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16447-8_15
Kim, R., Thomas, S., van Dierendonck, R., & Poslad, S. (2018). A new mould rush: Designing for a slow bio-digital game driven by living micro-organisms. In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (pp. 1-9). https://doi.org/10.1145/3235765.3235798
Kim, R. (2015). Fungal indices. In C. Arozqueta, & R. Azaola (Eds.), Future mirrors (pp. 11-14). Modelab.
- Prarthana Majumdar
Prarthana Majumdar
Ph.D. Candidate - Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
Supervisors
Prarthana Majumdar is a PhD candidate in the department of Design Engineering at Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands.
Prarthana graduated as the highest performer in Mechanical Engineer from Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (IIT) and later received her Masters Cum Laude from Stanford University, USA. She worked at Apple, Inc. for two years wherein she fell in love with good design. She has interned in the field of Sustainable Management for small scale handicraft industries in India. She has also been leading two projects for the development of portals that promote connectivity among students and alumni in IIT's.
Her areas of interest are: Materials, Innovation Strategy, Technology Do-it-yourself.
Project (2016-17)
DIY MATERIAL EXPERIENCES IN DELTAS
Her project as a PhD scholar focuses on promoting Do-it-Yourself material practices in the Base of the Pyramid, primarily India and Bangladesh. She focuses on Social Innovation and Materials Experience to understand how local eco-materials and recycled materials can be used for prosumption products in such developing countries. The project aims at bridging concepts and technologies like 3D printing and crowdsourcing to the realm of Design for Base of the Pyramid and contributing towards democratization of innovation and manufacturing in this segment that constitutes 70% of the global population.
PublicationS
- Majumdar, P., Karana, E., Ghazal, S., Sonneveld, M.H. (2017). The Plastic Bakery: A case of material driven design. In Alive. Active. Adaptive: Proceedings of International Conference on Experiential Knowledge and Emerging Materials (EKSIG 2017), June 19-20, Delft, the Netherlands, pp. 116-128.
Majumdar, P., & Banerjee, S. (2017). The Challenges to Sustainable Growth of the Micro Scale Kuhila Craft Industry in India (6th International Conference on Research and Design, iCoRD’17).
Majumdar, P., Ji, S., & Banerjee, S. (2017). Disconnect between Consumer Preferences of Young-Urban Buyers and the Value Proposition of the Rattan and Bamboo Furniture Industry in Assam (6th International Conference on Research and Design, iCoRD’17)
- Yask Kulshreshtha
YASK KULSHRESHTHA
Visiting researcher - Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
PhD candidate -the Faculty of Civil Engineering & Geosciences, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
SupervisorS
Yask Kulshreshtha is a visiting researcher at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering and a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Civil Engineering & Geosciences. He is conducting research on building affordable, durable, and desirable homes using locally available mud and biological resources.
After finishing his bachelors in Engineering from BVM Engineering college in India, he moved to Delft and started an MSc program in Civil Engineering. In his master thesis, he developed a corn starch based material (named CoRncrete) and continued researching on it after graduating (with honours) in 2015. Yask moved back to Inda in 2016 to embark on a nine months-long backpacking trip in India. On this trip, he spent time learning the traditional building construction methods and used this knowledge to write a PhD proposal that took him back to Delft in 2017. Since then, Yask is carrying out multidisciplinary research at the intersection of materials sciences, civil engineering, geosciences, architecture, and design. He is fascinated by cow-dung and investigating the science behind its well-known water-resistant properties. He was recently awarded a grant from the Dutch science foundation (NWO) to extend his work on cow-dung and explore its application as an ecological brick that can regulate the indoor climate of buildings. Within this project, he is actively involved in research with the materials experience lab.
Current Project
COW-DUNG MUD BRICK INSTALLATION
The project aims at creating an installation that transforms from one form to another by gradually disintegrating under the influence of rain and wind. This installation would be built on a biological cow farm in Delft. The installation aims to invoke people to re-think natural building material as an eco-friendly alternative to concrete and fired brick construction.
PUBLICATIONS
Marsh, A. T. M., & Kulshreshtha, Y. (2021). The state of earthen housing worldwide: how development affects attitudes and adoption. (Aceepted in Building Research & Information)
Kulshreshtha, Y., Mota, N. J. A., Jagadish, K. S., Bredenoord, J., Vardon, P. J., van Loosdrecht, M. C. M., & Jonkers, H. M. (2020). The potential and current status of earthen material for low-cost housing in rural India. Construction and Building Materials, 247, 118615. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2020.118615
Kulshreshtha, Y., Schlangen, E., Jonkers, H. M., Vardon, P. J., & van Paassen, L. A. (2017). CoRncrete: A corn starch based building material. Construction and Building Materials, 154, 411–423. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2017.07.184
Paassen, L. van, & Kulshreshtha, Y. (2017). Biopolymers: Cement Replacement. In Cultivated Building Materials. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783035608922-013
- Shahar Livne
SHAHAR LIVNE
Designer in residence
SUPERVISOR
Shahar Livne (1989) is an Israeli-born designer located in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. Her lifelong fascinations in nature, biology, science and more developed into intuitive material experimentation way of work during her bachelor studies at the Design Academy Eindhoven. Since 2014, Shahar’s body of work focuses on material research and her work process is characterized by trial and error experimentation in the search for interesting results. Some of her projects deal with obscure materials such as animals blood, man-made fossils, crystallization and more. Her projects starting points are often stories about places, cultures and everyday life, yet, materials are always in the center used as carriers of narratives. Shahar Sees herself as a conceptual material designer with an intuitive and research approach that materializes through written research and expressive objects compositions. currently, she works on developing her graduation projects from the Design Academy Eindhoven where she graduated at in 2017, investigating speculative material occurrences in nature.
Project (2018)
IN COLLABORATION WITH THE MATERIALS EXPERIENCE LAB
Environmental changes, deforestation and the spread of man-made pollutants are inevitably threatening the existence of natural materials and transforming nature as we know it. At the same time, new natural materials which are the result of environmental contamination are emerging, and man-made materials such as plastic are proliferating in our surroundings.
Investigating a post-plastic future, where the only place to extract petroleum-based plastics will be from nature in a new hybrid form, plastics will regain a new value, far beyond the way we see it in our current time.
By creating and developing Lithoplast- a speculative material which might be the result of thousands of years of natural metabolism and its encounter with the "golden spike" of humanity- plastics, Shahar embodies and research questions with this new raw material that can be processed in a similar way to clay and is acting as an ultimate symbol of the transformation of matter and the inevitable shifts of materials between nature, synthetic and cultural aspects.
In this project, Shahar would like to use the MDD method to explore whether Lithoplast is experienced as natural or synthetic and how she can systematically tailor its qualities to enhance or worsen the experience of naturalness through craftsmanship and design objects. - Bruna Petreca
Dr. Bruna Petreca
Post Doc - Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
Supervisors
Bruna is a Post-Doc design researcher and practitioner. She holds a BA in Fashion & Textiles (Universidade de São Paulo), and a PhD in Design Products from the Royal College of Art (funded by CNPq, Brazil). She is interested in our experience with materials, with a focus on textiles, and investigates how to support designers in exploring and expressing the multisensory aspects of this rich experience. Through her PhD research she has contributed an understanding of how textile selection happens in design through tacit processes and embodied aspects, and applied those insights to design a tool that supports designers’ embodied textile selection processes - ‘The sCrIPT Toolkit’. She is taking this research forward with a focus on factoring sensory, embodied and affective experience into the design of materials experience, physically and digitally. Having worked in a technology research institute for a number of years, she has gained experience in manufacture of textiles and apparel, quality control, and R&D projects. The dissemination of her work has occurred mainly through publications, participating in events relevant for the design and human-computer interaction communities, and through workshops and teaching in diverse institutions such as London College of Fashion, Royal College of Art, University of the Arts Bremen, Centro Universitário Belas Artes de São Paulo, etc. Her research occasionally extends to collaborations with designers and artist, presently collaborating with Projeto Co. Recently, Bruna has supported the Centro Universitário Belas Artes de São Paulo to structure and open their Design & Immersive Experiences Lab, as its supervisor.
Current Project
MULTI-SITUATED MATERIALS
With the notion of Multi-situated Materials (Karana, Giaccardi, Rognoli, in press), we suggest that if the materials of a product can enable an individual to resourcefully situate the product in multiple contexts and as part of multiple practices, the product will remain appropriate and will continue to generate value for a longer time. Take Soft Light by Simon Frambach as an example. It is a lamp that can be used for illumination, but it is unique and conspicuous for its soft nature. It is made of an elastomeric material. The use of this material involves unconventional practices of squeezing and pressing not usually associated to lighting items. This soft, pumpkin- shaped product produces soft light, but because of its ductility can also be used as a warm and pleasant pillow, or as a crevice-filling device to be placed between any object and a wall, or between two objects, without fearing that it will get broken or damaged. In designing multi-situated materials, the main challenge is to identify what the properties and qualities of such materials should be. In this project we will research into the qualities of materials, which enable them to be situated in multiple contexts as part of multiple practices in daily life.
Publications
Petreca, B., Saito, C., Yu, X., Bianchini-Berthouse, N., Brown, A., Cox, J., Glancy, M., Bauerley, S. (2017). Radically Relational: Using Textiles As A Platform ToDevelop Methods For Embodied Design Processes. In Alive. Active. Adaptive: Proceedings of International Conference on Experiential Knowledge and Emerging Materials (EKSIG 2017), June 19-20, Delft, the Netherlands, pp. 261-274.
- Serena Camere
Dr. Serena Camere
Post Doc - Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
Supervisor
Serena Camere is a multidisciplinary industrial designer and Post-Doc researcher working with bio-based Emerging Materials. In the research project “Growing Design”, she deals with materials grown from living organisms, such as fungi and bacteria.
Serena concluded the PhD (cum laude) in March 2016 with a thesis titled “Experience (Virtual) Prototyping”, which explored the potential of new CAD/CAM technologies for experience-driven multisensory design. Within this research, she developed methods and tools for designers, to assist them during the use of these technologies for experience-driven design. During her MSc. in Milan, she matured a deep interest for materials that evolved into her graduation project, ‘Segni in Superficie/Timelapse’, which was awarded with honors at the Politecnico di Milano and the Honorable Mention of Lucky Strike Talented Design Award 2013. For this project, Serena collaborated with Serralunga design company to research new expressive qualities of plastics, developing a technique to make plastics age gracefully.
After the PhD, her research naturally evolved towards the Experiential Characterization of Materials, coupling her interest for materials with the research skills developed during the PhD. In the STW-funded project “Mycelium-based materials for product design”, she is in charge of conducting a series of characterization studies (both on a technical and experiential level) to assess the material’s properties. The results of these studies will be then used to stimulate the further development of the material and its embodiment in products.
During her career, Serena has been constantly seeking for opportunities to merge design practice and design research. This has led her to engage in several design contests and projects, in parallel to the academic career. In the past, Serena has collaborated with design studios and design companies, such as Skitch, Serralunga, Alessi, Woodnotes, Camparisoda, Eurochocolate, Design Innovation and Fiat-Chrysler.
PROJECT (2016-2017)
GROWING DESIGN
One of the challenges of this century is to transform our current economy into an eco-friendly and self-sustaining system. An innovative approach is the use of mycelium for the development of materials. Mycelium is an interwoven network of fungal filamentous cells called hyphae. Fungi form these mycelia on a wide variety of organic substrates. Mushroom forming fungi are known for their efficient colonization of ligno-cellulosic substrates like wood and straw. In this project, we aim to develop a palette of mycelium-based composite materials with different physical properties ranging from elastic to rigid, water-absorbing to water-repellent, and porous to compact. The MELAB Post Doc researcher, Serena Camere, explores how mycelium based materials are experienced in products. The results of the research support further development of the material.
Publications
- Camere, S., Karana, E. (2017). Growing Materials for Product Design. In Alive. Active. Adaptive: Proceedings of International Conference on Experiential Knowledge and Emerging Materials (EKSIG 2017), June 19-20, Delft, the Netherlands, pp. 101-115.
Karana, E., Blauwhoff, D., Hultink, E. J., Camere, S. (in preparation, available upon request), When The Material Grows: A Case Of Material Driven Design
Camere, S., Schifferstein, H.N.J. & Bordegoni, M. (2016). Materializing experiential visions into sensory properties. The use of the Experience Map. In Proceedings of Design and Emotion 2016, September 27-30 (pp.201-210) (Best Paper Award)
Camere, S. (2016). Experience (Virtual) Prototyping. The use of virtual technologies to support experience-driven design process (Doctoral dissertation, Politecnico di Milano, Italy).
Camere, S., & Bordegoni, M. (2016). A lens on future products: an Expanded notion of prototyping practice. In Proceedings of DESIGN2016, Dubrovnik, Croatia, May 16-19.
Camere, S., & Bordegoni, M. (2016). Unfolding the notion of Experience (Virtual) Prototyping: A Framework for Prototyping in an Experience-Driven Design Process. Journal of Integrated Design and Process Science, 20(2), 17-30.
Caruso, G., Camere, S., & Bordegoni, M. (2016). System based on abstract prototyping and motion capture to support car interior design. Computer-Aided Design and Applications, 13(2), 228-235.
Bordegoni, M., Camere, S., Caruso, G., & Cugini, U. (2015). Body tracking as a generative tool for experience design. In International Conference on Digital Human Modeling and Applications in Health, Safety, Ergonomics and Risk Management (pp. 122-133). Springer International Publishing.
Camere, S., & Bordegoni, M. (2015). A strategy to support experience design process: the principle of accordance. Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Science, 16(4), 347-365.
Camere, S., Caruso, G., Bordegoni, M., Di Bartolo, C., Mauri, D., & Pisino, E. (2015). Form follows data: a method to support concept generation coupling experience design with motion capture. In DS 80-5 Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED 15) Vol 5: Design Methods and Tools-Part 1, Milan, Italy, 27-30.07. 15.
Camere, S., Schifferstein, H. N., & Bordegoni, M. (2015). The experience map. A tool to support experience-driven multisensory design. In Proceedings of DesForm 2015 (pp.147-155), 13-17 October, Politecnico di Milano, Italy.
Camere, S., & Bordegoni, M. (2014). The Role of the Designer in the Affective Design Process: the Principle of Accordance. In Proceedings of the 5th Conference on Applied Human Factors and Engineering (pp. 66-77).
- Gatti, E., Bordegoni, M., & Camere, S. (2014). Experiences and Senses: An experimental based methodology for design optimization. In Proceedings of 9th International Conference on Design & Emotion (pp.340-348), October 8-10, Bogota, Colombia.
- Federico Trevia
FEDERICO TREVIA
Researcher - Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
SUPERVISOR
Dr. Jan Carel Diehl
Federico is currently working on project DELTAP at the Industrial Design Engineering Faculty of TU Delft, in collaboration with the faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences at TU Delft. Project DELTAP focuses on developing an integrative approach for smart small-scale piped water supply in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna Delta. The focus of Federico’s research is on the exploration and use of local materials (both natural and waste-based) in Rajshahi, Bangladesh, as resource for DIY-materials, together with the integration of the water system in the community. Main areas of interest are fulfillment of system requirements, water distribution in the village and social adoption.
Prior to this Federico received his Bachelor degree in Industrial Design from Politecnico di Milano in 2011 and his Master degree in Design For Interaction at TU Delft in 2013 with a graduation project at Philips Design. After his studies he has been working for different sized companies and industries both in Italy and The Netherlands, spanning from education start-ups and product design studios to industrial groups and advertising agencies.
Working as a professional designer he gained experience in human centered design, product design and conceptualization, process visualization and project management.
Materials exploration, use and enhancement has always been at the heart of his projects, in the quest of defining how to convey experiences through shape, form and texture. In his career Federico was involved in projects related to the discovery of textile’s transparency, perception and reflectivity for space design; wood selection, shaping and treatment for public space and interior design projects; aluminum treatment for texture, shape and finishing in luxury product design; paper and cardboard investigation and treatment for packaging design.
Current Project
DIY MATERIAL EXPERIENCES IN DELTAS
In this project, Federico Trevia explores how (new) materials are experienced in BoP countries, specifically in Deltas in India and Bangladesh; as well as the dynamics of the society and the organization to be taken into account in the development and implementation of DIY material practices for locally produced products.
PUBLICATIONS
Evelien Van de Garde-Perik, Federico Trevia, Adam Henriksson, Luc Geurts and Helle Ullerup (2016). Getting a GRIP at the Design of a Nature Inspired Relaxation Space for Work-Related Stress. International Journal of Arts and Technology, Volume 9, Issue 3. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJART.2016.078612
Material is a Medium. It communicates ideas, beliefs, approaches; compels us to think, feel and act in certain ways; enables and enhances functionality and utility. Materials Experience emphasises this role of materials as being simultaneously technical and experiential.
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