Designing the New Normal

The research project is part of a larger project named Meedoen=Groeien! (‘participation is growth’). This project gets shape through the collaboration between the Princess Maxima Center (the biggest European Center for Pediatric Oncology in Europe settled in Utrecht) and TU Delft.

The project will build on the Development-Oriented Care Approach to foster the normal age-related development of children and maintain good quality of life in the short and long term inside the family context. The research is shaped as a multidisciplinary project connecting different domains and developing through a research-through-design approach. The use of prototypes, in fact, will help in framing and defining the potential designs for the project.

The research will try to understand how a New Normal can be built in response to life-disruptive events; by investigating which changes generate into the family life consequently to cancer. This will led to design interventions that may allow families to find a new balance in their everyday lives (i.e., a ‘New Normal’).