Delft Design Stories

Let there be light! How to design your own lamp in 1, 2, 3

Are you tired of seeing the same old lamp designs everywhere you go? Have you ever dreamed of designing and creating your own original lamp? With a material of your choosing? Then good news! Thanks to former IDE student Dino Liao and the rise of AI you can. Discover how in this Student Story.
Is het gewaad op dat schilderij van fluweel of van satijn?

22 September 2021

Is the robe in that painting velvet or satin?

Staring at one of the richly drawn paintings in Amsterdam’s famous Rijksmuseum, you might recognise that the robe worn by the subject of the painting is made of velvet and the cup on the table is made of silver. Your eyes only see swirls of paint but your brain understands what the artist was depicting. As part of his thesis research, Mitchell van Zuijlen wanted to understand how this is possible.
Waarom belanden innovaties in de Vallei des Doods?

15 September 2021

Why do innovations end up in the Valley of Death?

When it comes to innovating in large organisations, why do so many concepts die before they are realised? Barend Klitsie’s PhD research explored what organisational conditions help innovators to mitigate the Valley of Death and achieve sustainable implementation.

07 July 2021

The Spaceman has a job for you

A cancer diagnosis is an awful and upsetting event for anyone. For the parents of young children, it is nearly unthinkable. Yet, every year, for some 35,000 families around Europe, it is a reality. PhD researcher Patrizia D'Olivo wanted to help them with her research.

06 July 2021

Getting personal with dementia care

Caring for people with dementia is not a one-size-fits-all kind of thing. That’s because people have different personalities, life experiences and preferences. Taking these things into account, Gubing Wang’s PhD explored how to facilitate designers and healthcare professionals with designing for personalised dementia care.

20 May 2021

What makes a circular designer?

It makes sense that designing for a circular economy requires something different than the traditional linear approach. Because it’s not just about creating sustainable products, it’s about an entire system aimed at reducing resource use and waste. For her PhD research, Deborah Sumter wanted to find out what competencies designers need to develop to be successful at circular design.

18 May 2021

How to paint convincing stuff

If you see a bunch of grapes, how does your brain understand that those are real grapes and not ones made of plastic? And if you see those grapes in a painting - say a 17th-century piece of Dutch Golden Age art - how does your brain understand that those are also grapes? That’s what Francesca Di Cicco wanted to know for her PhD thesis.

03 May 2021

A robot with a soft touch

Try and picture a robotic hand and an image of metal fingers with rigid joints might come to mind. Imagine instead one made of soft materials that can dextrously grip an apple, automatically adjust to its shape, and pluck it from a tree. Rob Scharff, through his PhD research, explores how the emerging field of soft robotics has the potential to revolutionise the future of robotic manipulation.

Delft Design Stories

Read the stories of researchers and students at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, and discover the scientific questions on which they work and the solutions they present.

Out of the Blue #11: How To Make the Shiny Thing Happen

Honorary TU Delft doctorate recipient Marco Steinberg talks strategic design, the opposite of death by 1000 cuts and how to make the shiny thing happen.
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In the IDE Podcast Series ‘Out of the Blue’, Teacher of Practice Ianus Keller and PhD candidate Frithjof Wegener talk with our designers, researchers, students and teachers about their stories. Thankfully, we’re allowed to listen in.

Out of the Blue #10: Freedive with Kevin Shahbazi

IDE researcher Frithjof Wegener joins Ianus Keller for the second Freedive at the IDE 50 years jubilee, where they converse with Kevin Shahbazi on how to implement true circularity in large companies such as Philips, and Kevin’s plans for sustainability with Board of Innovation.
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In the IDE Podcast Series 'Out of the Blue', Ianus Keller, Teacher of Practice at Industrial Design Engineering, talks with our designers, researchers, and teachers about their stories. Thankfully, we're allowed to listen in.

We\Visit: combatting loneliness with video-calling

Visiting a loved one who’s critically ill: normally that’s possible, but due to the coronavirus, visiting ICUs is no longer permitted. The result is a lonely fight behind closed doors. In an attempt to combat the loneliness, researchers at Delft University of Technology have come up with We\Visit: a tool that facilitates video-calling by appointment. And it was developed at lightning speed after the Reinier de Graaf hospital sounded the alarm.

Out of the Blue #17: Noise-cancelling windows and wacky giraffes

Working from home provides us with a whole new set of challenges and opportunities. As designers, shouldn’t we be the best equipped people for this? In this final part of our special Freedive isolation series, Ianus chats with Joost Dommisse. He studies Integrated Product Design and they together talk about designing noise-cancelling windows, how to study design from a distance and wacky robotic giraffes.
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In the IDE Podcast Series ‘Out of the Blue’, Teacher of Practice Ianus Keller and PhD candidate Frithjof Wegener talk with our designers, researchers, students and teachers about their stories. Thankfully, we’re allowed to listen in.

Out of the Blue #16: Infuse a Little Empathy

Due to COVID-19, design students, lecturers and researchers are stuck at home. How are they coping? For part one of a special three-part Freedive series, we talk with Yongqing Fei, or Jackie as we know her. She has a lot of experiences with quarantines and tells about redesigning an oven from home and her story on moving from isolation in China to isolation in Delft.
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In the IDE Podcast Series ‘Out of the Blue’, Teacher of Practice Ianus Keller and PhD candidate Frithjof Wegener talk with our designers, researchers, students and teachers about their stories. Thankfully, we’re allowed to listen in.

Out of the Blue #15: Freedive with Yongqing Jackie Fei

Due to COVID-19, design students, lecturers and researchers are stuck at home. How are they coping? For part one of a special three-part Freedive series, we talk with Yongqing Fei, or Jackie as we know her. She has a lot of experiences with quarantines and tells about redesigning an oven from home and her story on moving from isolation in China to isolation in Delft.
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In the IDE Podcast Series ‘Out of the Blue’, Teacher of Practice Ianus Keller and PhD candidate Frithjof Wegener talk with our designers, researchers, students and teachers about their stories. Thankfully, we’re allowed to listen in.

Out of the Blue #14: (Not) Safe for Designers?

Material science is often a black box for designers. But in Delft Design, knowledge on material properties is essential. Erik Tempelman has literally written the book on it: “(Not) Safe for Designers”. He talks with Ianus Keller about the surprising journeys of material properties, how the Pixar character Anton Ego inspires him and explores the meaning of the Dutch word ‘stevig’.
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In the IDE Podcast Series ‘Out of the Blue’, Teacher of Practice Ianus Keller and PhD candidate Frithjof Wegener talk with our designers, researchers, students and teachers about their stories. Thankfully, we’re allowed to listen in.