collaborative process

The collaborative process and experiences of our group have been helpful in a lot of ways. We were first introduced to solve wicked problem that somehow related to our area of studies. Even though all of us have different backgrounds, we are able to brainstorm ideas from our past experiences. We as a group are able to communicate with each other with our ideas. Even we may not all agree on something, but we are able to take apart and think it through, then form another new ideas that we all agree upon. I think that’s what make our group experiences successful. I think it would have been better if we could some how incorporate the ideas and techniques that we learned from the readings or from the lectures to our group discussions. Even we received the same information from the readings and the lectures, but we might have very different ideas a on certain subject. And by sharing our thoughts and ideas to each other, we could all learn from each other and opens up variety of perspective.

My take away

From both the readings and lectures, I gain a lot of knowledge. And such knowledge introduced me a whole new way of thinking and new ways to approach to design problems. I could now used some of the techniques that were brought up from the readings or discussed in the lectures to many of the assignments that I’m working on in the classes at Parsons. One major benefit that I gain from the readings and lectures is that now I pay attention to details that I’ve often neglect or didn’t even put efforts to think it through. By looking at the details, I would more likely to find solutions and be able to form constructive conclusions to design problem.

Response to "Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning"

The article written by Horst W.J Rittle, and Melvin M. Webber clearly distinguishes wicked problems from tame problems in how their specific characteristics differ and even the solutions and the manner in which they are sought for differ. I find it particularly interesting in how complex wicked problems actually are. When observing a mathematical or scientic problem that is extremely complex in nature, as this article states - there is always a true or false answer, so its either black or white, no shades of grey. Whereas wicked problems have so many factors that can continuously change, leaving quite a few things ambiguous. After reading this article, you get a clearer picture of the nature of wicked problems and how the actual "defining" of the problem is as complex as the "solution" of the problem. I think this article has given a great insight to the nature of wicked problems and addresses certain aspects of the defining/finding a solution process, that go unnoticed.

3) Project Development

So far the problem statement that has been defined is operating critically and sustainable within the context of a city infrastructure. Such that we will be operating within new york city’s infrastructure, and the approach is to incorporate sustainability effectively into the fashion industry. This project will be a non-profit organization, but financial and social resources are yet to be defined. Once a prototype for our intervention will be developed, we can gauge the impact of our project. As mentioned previously, we have been stuck in the preliminary stages of our project and therefore this has halted us in progressing further, but now that the wicked problem and solution have been narrowed down we can actually develop a prototype accordingly.

2) Reflection on the collaborative process

The experiences of being in a team have been a good experience so far. The group has been co-operating and has been progressively improving in terms of specifying and narrowing down our design thinking for our wicked problem. I feel like we could definitely engage further use of the specific design thinking tools that have been presented to us. And I personally think we have not utilized these tools to the fullest extent because initially we were a little all over the place and recently we have narrowed down the actual problem and developing a solution for it. So now that things are more specified we can actually apply those design thinking tools and yield positive results from them.

I think that our group as a whole when working and discussing things together develop the connections between readings, discussions and our process and development. Because through our discussions, we find out things that each one of us wouldn’t have if we were working individually, so each person gives some insight that furthers us as a group. So for example, when we came up with the problem statements, each of us had written three different statements, stating different points that were all valid, so once we had to finalize our problem statement, we brought together all those different points under one umbrella. Then once we did that we broke down the different stages of the problem and in our design briefs each of us has kind of focused on a different stage of the problem. Through diagrams and visually drawing out the problem we were able to understand the three different stages in which the problem occurs: Production of the raw materials/Production of the garments/Post consumer use. So therefore the individual research and development that took place in our own time was effective in developing our group’s problem statement and design proposal.

Furthermore, to evaluate my role in the group, I prefer managing the tasks that we have to get done, and setting goals that can push our group further. I still feel that we have been stuck in the preliminary stages of this project but now that things have been more specified I definitely think we should put our idea out there and see what sort of feedback and results it will get.

The difficulties and struggles that were initially faced were coordinating our group to meet, and actually coming to a definitive narrowed/focus problem. But we have been able to overcome that and we can progress further in actually trying to apply our solutions to our wicked problem and evaluate the results accordingly.

I think that the weekly journaling exercises have been quite successful, in that the reading helps me understand various tools we can apply as part of our design strategy, and for the work we will be doing from now onwards I feel that is necessary to use some of those tools and theories to help us success in this project.

The iterative process of design: 1) What was your take away?

The readings and presentations of the first half of this semester have been quite thought provoking. They present a lot of ideas that correlate to different aspects of my journey at parsons till this point. I found that a lot of the topics that have been discussed were quite apt and are vital in a certain stage of the design process in any field of design. After quite a few of the lectures I can think of quite a few examples in which the discussions could relate to practical scenarios.

design brief

fashion itself is an endless cycle that produces tremendous amount of waste from garments that are out of season. Garments that are made out of synthetics materials are non-biodegradable. Furthermore, the growing process of non organic cotton contain the use of pesticides, which can cause soil contamination and air pollution. In addition to environmental effects, pesticides can also cause detrimental health issues as affecting our nervous system. Fashion cannot just be about how we look but rather the entire production process that goes around the industry. From growing cotton to the finished products and to the hand of the customer, that include the farmers, the makers, and the consumers . Out of the all, the most important is the treatments of the fabric and the manufacture of fibers. Dyeing, the method that most likely to achieved color on fabric, uses chemical that contains arsenic, which put not only the makers and wearers in health risk, but also contaminates ground water.

It is possible to wear fashionable outfits without contaminate our environment. The first step would be to change the materials that we use for making garments. Unlike other materials, the growing process of organic cotton would not contain pesticides, thus won’t have negative effects on the farmers and the earth. We can also use recycled plastic bottles to make outfits such as fleeces. Accessories such as belt or bracelet could be made out of recycled tyres. In the method of recycle and reuse, we can solve the issue of landfill and make garments that are out of seasons useful for the next coming seasons.

reading response

This week’s three articles are interesting in terms of bringing different aspects of thinking in the area that we usually take for granted. After I finished reading the articles, I actually have the one of the emotions, “interest”, that the article brought up. As it mentioned, “ it motivates people to learn to increase their knowledge just because they want to”. Theses articles motivated me to think and be curious about the relationship between our knowledge and the technologies that we created. In the present day, we are extremely depended on technologies that kids these days would just sit in front of computers with a cell phone all day long. Even for adults, we now loose that face to face contact and verbally conversation as we used to have back in the days when we don’t have any high-tech machines around us. I think that if we don’t have the knowledge and information as we had from the entire mass media, we will not have eager or have any types of emotion to pursuit a better life. Just like the articles mentioned, we’ve got out of control. We often take things that we created or things that already exist for granted. Furthermore, we often time neglect the consequences for our actions. We gain the knowledge and skills but what we did not learn is how to prevent our abilities to get out of control. Due to the fact that we have emotion, we cannot constrain our desire. I think that’s why it is so important to get rid of desire and to clean our mind in Buddhism’ belief.

reading response

The three readings assigned for this week enhanced my knowledge gained from the readings of the previous works. I am currently working in India with a spiritual practice based completely on our emotions and senses which alter as well shape our lives and co-related Griggs article with my spiritual learning and believe that it is extremely profound from the design perspective as well as being essential in the basics of our life. Emotions are the building blocks of our relationshps,health and success. Everyday every second we feel a large number of emotions and each one is being stored in our body. Infact in my spiritual practice I have also learnt that certain emotions cause certain diseases as well as the release of certain hormones in the body which I feel to connect to Griggs article.

 

The other two articles primarily dealt with technology its progress and disastrous effects. Man so dependent on the advancement of technology and the ease it brings to our lives that we now cannot imagine life without it.  We oversee the disadvantages as we are just so dependent and comfortable with its advanatages. Even though advancement provides scope for evolving design it does create negative effects. We believe in the beauty of gaining knowledge from this advancing technology but little do we bother about the wrong. This really made me think if I could live without my phone or ipod or laptop for a day and the answer was : THE END! 

Design Brief: Invention of clothing from used or discarded clothing

Due to the recession many clothing brands have an excess or surplus of clothes which are usually dumped or thrown away. Also, many people around the world wear their pieces of clothing just 2-3 times and are in perfect condition to be re-used.A clothing line based on recycled clothing which goes waste or which is in perfect condition is my idea for a product line. the new garment will be constructed using these unused or almost new clothing and yet keeping it up-todate with latest fashion. Also making the clothing flexible so that it can be used in different styles and ways

The three articles assigned for this weeks reading were quite interesting in their own separate ways. Jessica Griggs' article about the five emotions we never knew we had highlights some key points about unnoticed emotions and the roles they have to play in certain aspects of our life. Everything stated in the article was spot on, in terms of the way one feels and how those certain emotions have an effect on relationships, yourself as a person, your performance in the workplace/home etc. I also found it particularly interesting in how I kept reading this article and kept agreeing at every point and thought to myself about the facts written about the unnoticed emotions and they stand very true as I myself ended up thinking about situations in which those emotions have kicked in/played a role in my life.

The other two articles do not so much link to the emotions article yet they in between them selves address a few common issues. The whole evolution of technologies needs to have a starting point and there is intended progress and variation that can be achieved, and I find it interesting in how Arthur contradicts the evolution of technologies to Darwin's theory of evolution. In technology there will always be some progress that is achieved through an analysis of the previous version of something. And this progress keeps manifesting at a rapid rate. These facts about the evolution of technology end up interweaving with the third article that discusses information overload and its disadvantages. So the progression of technology (which is developed through the gain of knowledge) in essence provides a platform for further danger, as the most advanced technology becomes, the more easy it becomes to create disastrous things. It defines a different viewpoint of the flipside of acquiring knowledge. It is a general fact that gaining knowledge is a positive thing, but Paul Parsons' article relates the negative side of too much knowledge. This fact being spoken of is not something I would have personally thought of but Parsons' puts it in perspective.

DESIGN BRIEF #1: Intervention for the disposal of garments waste

The textile industry proves to produce a lot of waste through production and consumption methods. In order to tackle the waste issues that essentially lead to other bigger issues in our environment a possible method of change that may be implemented is that of a recycling system for our garments. This recycling system should incorporate a way of allowing people who do not use garments after a certain number of uses to come and give those garments in for recycling. This clothing recycle centre would be a non-profit organization and in order to encourage customers to come and drop of unused clothes or old clothes a monetary motivation factor could be included. A prototype of this garment recycle centre should be created in order to determine how effective this solution is in trying to focus on the post garment use waste.

Photograph of post-its with problem statement

Reading response

Everett Rogers' readings for the week based on diffusion theory as a process that spreads new ideas into the design culture and the general culture of the world today. He  believes it to be a process of generating abundance of benefits in our environment\framework\surroundings or systems. Although extremely beneficial it needs to be implemented in the correct way to be able to determine the final result of the 'diffusion of the invention.' Examples in the reading explain how to implement this process, its workings and usage. The reading explains the general ideas of society and how our communication had become intense with the advancement of technology. Technology has made the process of diffusion happen faster and faster with better results.

Problem statement

Fashion, for the most part, is about luxury and style. The term Fashion is sometimes associates with the lavish and fast lifestyle. With the idea of fast trend, fashion itself is an endless cycle that produces t tremendous amount of waste from garments that are out of season. Garments that are made out of synthetics materials are non-biodegradable. Furthermore, the growing process of non organic cotton contain the use of pesticides, which can cause soil contamination and air pollution. In addition to environmental effects, pesticides can also cause detrimental health issues as affecting our nervous system. Fashion cannot just be about how we look but rather the entire production process that goes around the industry. From growing cotton to the finished products and to the hand of the customer, that include the farmers, the makers, and the consumers . Out of the all, the most important is the treatments of the fabric and the manufacture of fibers. Dyeing, the method that most likely to achieved color on fabric, uses chemical that contains arsenic, which put not only the makers and wearers in health risk, but also contaminates ground water.

PROBLEM STATEMENT

Textile industry is among the most essential consumer goods industry and is accused of being the most polluting industry. Not only production but consumption of textiles also produces waste. The average lifetime of a product is three years. Most textile waste comes from during yarns and fabric manufacturing, apparel-making processes and the disposal of garments. The requirement of landfill space is reduced. Textiles lead to many problems in landfill. Synthetic fibers don't decompose. Woolen garments do decompose but produce methane, which contributes to global warming. Textile recycling is for both, environmental and economic benefits. It avoids many polluting and energy intensive processes that are used to make textiles from fresh materials. As per the Council for Textile Recycling, textile recycling industry prevents 2.5 billion pounds of post consumer textile product waste from going into the solid waste stream annually. Textiles made from organic cottons and silks, polyesters made from recycled plastic bottles or new fabrics made from waste left over from industry and agriculture need to be adopted.

RESPONSE TO INNOVATION/DIFFUSION EXCERPTS

Both readings for this week speak of Everett Rogers' diffusion theory as a process that spreads new ideas into our culture. This method is manifesting in our frameworks/networks/systems and provides a great deal of benefits. It needs to be implemented through the correct manners by which you can determine the ultimate success or failure of the diffusion of an invention. The few examples given in the readings give the reader an in depth insight as to how the process works and how people tend to adopt certain uses of technology. The four main elements in diffusion are:
1) Innovation
2) Communication Channels
3) Time
4) Social System.
After reading about the theory of the diffusion of innovation, I personally feel that the theory is accurate and precise in terms of explaining how ideas are spread throughout a society, and it well defines the different characteristics of the process that allow the diffusion to take place. In addition, as our communication networks become denser through technological advance, the diffusion process appears to be happening faster and faster and therefore yields even greater results. So it seems that understanding and utilizing diffusion networks can help strategy aimed at quickly inducing system-wide change. I had never heard of this theory before, so I found it interesting as to how this theory unfolds with its convincing and concrete conclusions. Furthermore, I definitely think we can use this theory with our problem solving issues in terms of spreading and implementing a particular solution to our wicked problem that has been identified. In terms of our topic of sustainable fashion, the theory could help communicate and promote the awareness that sustainable fashion is in fact defying the purpose of being sustainable as it is an oxymoron and therefore negates the effectiveness of it, and redirecting sustainability in a more beneficial manner and let the alternative be diffused through our society.

PROBLEM STATEMENT

Over the past few years, countries around the world, namely the United States and majority of the countries in Europe have been encouraging and promoting a healthy lifestyle in terms of food, the environment and in general, living. Sustainable living methods are important in today’s day and age because all of the decisions we make now and the choices we take will affect the future by limiting the available resources in the future. At the rate that our finite resources are being utilized, the capacity of nature to regenerate these resources in order to replace them is rapidly slowing down. Therefore we must take action in different areas to try and live in a sustainable manner to protect and savor the very few resources left over. One branch of sustainability that has manifested over the past few years is that of sustainable fashion. So why do we need sustainable fashion? The fashion industry is one of the main industries that generate large amounts of waste through production and post consumer use. Through generating sustainable fashion techniques, we can reduce the amount of waste being produced as a whole. Although this movement is a great positive step towards promoting and implementing a sustainable means of living by using environmentally friendly and greener materials, is it really effective? Through analyzing the process of the fashion cycle, we can identify many flaws in the system. Firstly, the production process is not environmentally friendly with the amount of energy that is used, and the waste produced by the factories. Secondly, after the product is sold, there is a large amount of post consumer waste generated. The fabrics used do not decompose, the number of washes. Neither are the detergents and chemicals used to maintain the garments helping our environment. So ideally speaking, even though some fashion houses are trying to create sustainable fashion methods, the irony of the situation is the manner in which these garments are produced are in fact not eco-friendly at all. Therefore, there is no actual need for sustainable fashion when the industry and the process itself are contradicting the idea of sustainable fashion and as a result is ineffective.

Reading response to Kin Wai michael siu's article

Kin wai michael siu's article about designing objects on the basis of the needs and creative response of the consumer highlights how designers often miss one of the most imp steps in the design proces i.e. Designing for the consumers needs. Each designer believes that his or her piece is a design marvel and a product the customer has always wanted. We as designers often do not do enough research to cater to the customers needs. A successful response to an object is by recieving the criticism of the customer itself. He compares the response of a customer for a design object to that of a reader reading a book. It is important for the intended audience to experience the designed object to give a true response. I completelt agree with Siu's idea of incorporating the participation of the intended audience in the design process to overcome any flaw of not catering to the consumer need. Though it is very tough to do so as only a certain number of people can be involved from the intended audience in the design process and this may lead to a response from a particular group of people.

Problem statement

Fashion, for the most part, is about luxury and style. The most important thing is how we feel about ourselves. However, fashion cannot just be about how we look but rather the entire production process that goes around the industry. From growing cotton to the finished products and to the hand of the customer, that include the farmers, the makers, and the consumers etc. Out of the all, the most important is the treatments of the fabric. Dyeing, the method that most likely to achieved color on fabric, uses chemical that contains arsenic, which put not only the makers in health risk, but also put the wearers in risk as well. Furthermore, the waste materials from dyeing process is one of the most severe pollution.

The article written by Kin Wai Michael Siu, about users' creative responses to designed objects, highlights some essential points that go unnoticed in the design process. He keeps emphasizing upon on how users needs are put to the side and not researched enough. He also states that a designer tends to think he is the best person in designing in object and satisfying the needs of the customer, but in reality a true response to satisfying a need is through the criticism of a customer themselves. He also compares the time from which Le Corbusier designed objects, and the modernistic approach constrains all those design principles which the pioneers initially used. I personally found it quite intriguing in how he compared the response to a designed object by a consumer, as a reader would read text from a book. Essentially the reactions from the intended audience undergo a similar manner of responding, such that they need to 'experience' the designed object/the text, and through that will the consumer/reader truly give a subjective response. Furthermore, after reading this extract I could not agree more with Siu's thoughts on incorporating user participation in the design decision-making process. On the flipside, I think it would be very difficult to actually make this happen as, most things designed reach such a varied audience and it would be difficult to actually make majority of your consumer base to interact and give feedback, but it is definitely something that should start being a part of the design process.