Harvesting Collective Trend Observations from Large Scale Study Trips
Year: 2014
Editor: Erik Bohemia, Arthur Eger, Wouter Eggink, Ahmed Kovacevic, Brian Parkinson, Wessel Wits
Author: Eriksen, Kaare; Ovesen, Nis
Series: E&PDE
Institution: Aalborg University, Denmark
Section: Learning Spaces
Page(s): 219-224
ISBN: 978-1-904670-56-8
Abstract
To enhance industrial design students’ decoding and understanding of the technological possibilities and the diversity of needs and preferences in different cultures it is not unusual to arrange study trips where such students acquire a broader view to strengthen their professional skills and approach, hence linking the design education and the design culture of the surrounding world. To improve the professional learning it is useful, though, to facilitate and organize the trips in a way that involves systematic data collection and reporting. This paper presents a method for facilitating study trips for engineering students in architecture & design and the results from crowd-collecting a large amount of trend observations as well as the derived experience from using the method on a large scale study trip. The method has been developed and formalized in relation to study trips with large numbers of students to the annual Milan Design Week and the Milan fair ‘I Saloni’ in Italy. The present paper describes and evaluates the method, the theory behind it, the practical execution of the trend registration, the results from the activities and future perspectives.
Keywords: Study trips, trend analysis, industrial design, trend observation, innovation.