News

Last year, the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science launched a competition to design the award for the newly established National Higher Education Prize (Nederlandse Hogeronderwijspremie ). While the prize is yet to be awarded, IDE students Eva Jonkers, Lin Zhou and Sanne ten Hoopen are already celebrating and look forward to seeing their design being lifted in the air by jubilant winners.

The “Co-creating the graduation journey” project has come to its second intervention. The previous participants of this 20-week long programme felt increasingly motivated in their graduation process thanks to the great energy and the empathy of the graduation community of IDE students. If you are starting your graduation between February and March, sign up to the programme and attend the Graduation Community kick-off day.

In the past semester, five teams of students with different disciplinary backgrounds were challenged to transform TU Delft’s Mekelpark into an interactive space for users of our campus. The projects “Link”, “Mimic”, “Harmony”, “Guido” and “Bustle” were showcased during the final exhibition of Interactive Environments Minor last week.

Last week was the launch of the Responsible Sensing Lab - a collaboration between Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS) , the Digital City programme of Amsterdam and IDE. This initiative sees Professor Gerd Kortuem and PhD candidate Kars Alfrink exploring how social values can be integrated in the design of sensing systems in public space.

While the last year has shown us just how much can be achieved virtually, the ability to translate an idea into a tangible prototype remains an important design competency. The students of the Advanced Prototyping minor have been showing us how it’s done. During the second part of the minor, students worked in groups to create and prototype new digital fabrication techniques and emerging materials. Finally they created movies showcasing their process and rather impressive results.

IDE bachelor’s student, Frédérique Valk, is the winner of the PFZW Design Award 2020. With her multi-functional block furniture, Frédérique was able to convince the five-strong jury of the contribution her innovative idea can make to the physical relief of childcare workers.

Last week saw the launch of eight new Delft AI-Labs. Over the course of 2020-2021 TU Delft is establishing a total of 24 TU Delft AI-labs where experts in AI foundations work together with experts in AI challenges. Amongst the eight new labs announced last week, is D@S Lab, established by IDE’s Professor Gerd Kortuem, together with Assistant Professor Evangelos Niforatos. The D@S Lab will focus on the opportunity of combining Artificial Intelligence with Human Intelligence to design at scale, thereby increasing our ability to tackle systemic challenges.

During the Interactive Environments minor of 2014-2015, a team of students developed a concept for an interactive environment entitled Vika. People from the Prinses Máxima Centre for Pediatric Oncology were involved in the course having provided the brief. So enthusiastic were they about the concept, that they managed to find funding to produce a hospital-worthy version which was installed in January 2021.

The Delft Design Labs have a new director: IDE’s Associate Professor, Rick Schifferstein. Rick tells us more about the role he will be taking on.

Sure, sustainable design can result in a trendy reusable bottle. But it’s not just about the product, it’s also about the process. Through his PhD research, Brian Baldassarre set out to understand how design expertise can be applied by business organisations in the transition towards sustainable development.

As a COVID-friendly alternative to the annual IDE Education Day, this year's BSc revision team is hosting the ‘Education Inspirations’. This programme is filled with lectures and workshops and will run from January to June 2021. The new bachelor is the central theme, but the subjects are relevant for all teachers whether working on the bachelor or involved in master education.

With most of us having worked mainly from home for almost a year, the quality of our working environment has become more relevant than ever before. This week sees the publication of a special issue of the scientific journal ‘Work’, in which various aspects related to comfort are described. Uniquely, ten of the authors that contributed to this special issue hail from our faculty, representing the Human-Centered Design and Sustainable Design Engineering departments.

Over 80 international medical experts joined the online NWO INSPiRED symposium on new smart health diagnostics for sub-Sahara Africa. The symposium showcased and discussed new technologies in the diagnosis of poverty-related parasitic infections and was moderated by IDE’s very own J.C. Diehl.

It’s nearly the end of the semester: a time to reflect on our work and share it with our peers. Around this time of year, IDE’s main hall is usually filled with exhibitions celebrating students’ work — particularly those taking minor courses, whose imaginative designs never fail to impress. Despite the shift to online learning, this year is no exception. The Interactive Environments and Advanced Prototyping Minors are holding online exhibitions and project presentations in the coming weeks that will showcase the results of their students’ hard work.