CURVE____fruit bowl design

The whole idea based on a book called Tao Te Ching, which is a chinese classic text and also fundamental to the Taoist school of chinese philosophy. I used one of its themes called emptiness(chapter 11, Tao Te Ching, by Lao-Tzu).

story board:

poster:

package:

leaflet:

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LANDSCAPE__ceramic bowl design

Traditional Chinese paintings called shan shui painting(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shan_shui) and ink and wash painting(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ink_and_wash_painting) gave me lots of inspirations. I'd like to integrate different kinds of landscapes of China into the tableware to crate a dreamlike microworld on the table just like the world in those shan shui paintings.

This project did not finished yet. As you can see from the picture below, I am going to continue it to make the cup, the chopstick holder and so on...

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My P.O.Box__product development project

My P.O.Box is a product development project started from 09/2008 to 05/2009. Itella (http://www.itella.fi) sponsored this project with a problem and budget to work on the next generation P.O. Box system. Our team is interdisciplinary (engineering, business and design) and intercultural (Finland, Sweden, China, Germany). It was based in two locations, Helsinki and Stockholm. Team members come from the following Royale Institute of Technology (KTH), Helsinki University of Technology (TKK), Helsinki School of Economics (HSE) and University of Art and Design Helsinki (TAIK). Due to confidentiality agreements details of this project can not be shown in this portfolio.

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Constrain__handcraft design

Constrain is a handcraft. In China, especially in the rural area there is a very traditional handcraft which has been used to make different kinds of wooden barrels, wooden bowls, wooden tubs, wooden bathtubs and even wooden closestools. The handcraft man cuts the fir into small pieces, connect those small pieces by using bamboo sticks and in the end a circular band of metal put around those pieces together. I’d like to use this handcraft to make something new.

Making process:

Final product:

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Silver Power__user inspired design

Silver Power is a part of the user inspired design course. In User Inspired Design (UID) course the traditional designerly problem solving and novel approaches to involve users into design decision making are applied to find out and describe emerging practices and design opportunities. The objectives are to understand the versatile business aims of concept design, learn user centered concept design process, learn to gather and use user and context information with approaches such as observations and self-documentation, learn to interpret qualitative user data for design purposes and to link user information with designerly problem solving, learn to generate, present and evaluate concept designs and practice with cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural co-operation.

The theme of this project is celebration. Our team chose the elderly people who live in the sheltered house as our target group. And our study question is what makes elderly people feel celebration. Fortunately, we got two different kinds of houses. One is a kind of ordinary sheltered house: Lauttasaaren vanhustentalo. Anther is a kind of alternative way of living: Loppukiri in Arabianranta.

Before we started the project, we did prestudy to understand the context first. We visited that two places informally, observed the environments, talked with people who live in there and interviewed the stuffs who work there to collect the date and get the initial impression.

After analyzing the date we gathered from the prestudy, we made the design probe and list the questions which we are going to ask in the formal interview. We gave the design probe to the ordinary sheltered house and also did the formal interview there.

We organized a workshop in Loppukiri which is a kind of alternative way of living and asked people to play the game we crated after we analyzed the date we got from the design probe and the interview.

The final concept included a new sheltered house and a digital garden. The key benefits of the new sheltered house are giving responsibility, raising activity level, making moving in mentally easier, encouraging moving and socializing inside the house, supplying with services and possibilities of the city and getting close of the nature. And the digital garden can take care of individual emotions, give people feelings of being important, alive and part of the community. It will also crate a communal atmosphere which will help to build good team spirit and have a community.

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Bend__fruit bowl design

BEND is a fruit bowl design. Once I tried to bend a piece of a4 paper with lots of different ways to create some structure. During the whole process, I found if I bend it like the way showed in the later picture I could not only create a nice surface but also a very strong and stiff surface. Then I used a piece of thin metal to do the same thing as I did to the paper. In the end, that piece of thin and soft metal turned to be really strong and beautiful.

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Fuel Cell Project__IDBM project

Fuel Cell Project was a part of the IDBM programme, started from 07/2008 to 05/2009. This project was done for Yrityssalo Oy (http://www.yrityssalo.fi) (formerly Salon seudun kehittämiskeskus Oy), whose goal is to enhance the business environment in the Salon region. The objective of the project was to find a universal solution related to the fuel supply of portable fuel cells. I was one member of a team consisted 4 students from Helsinki University of Technology (TKK), Helsinki School of Economics (HSE) and University of Art and Design Helsinki (TAIK) for the project. Due to confidentiality agreements details of this project can not be shown in this portfolio.

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