ANATOMY OF A PROTOTYPE AUGMENTED ARCHITECTURES

ANATOMY OF A PROTOTYPE

Project exhibited at 'Design and Research: Shared Territories' Curated by the Design Research Institute, XJTLU,
28th Oct-11 Nov 2014, Suzhou China.

The exhibition is formulated by the dissection of an interactive piece by exhibiting the role of the same prototype in different manifestations from problem solving through problem-finding to full documentation. Here, design research (Faste and Faste 2012) as a combination of process and research that culminates in an artifact as the embodiment of design research knowledge (e.g., an object, process, interaction, experience).
#1 – 'Prototype Outside-In'
The prototype as ready-made fully working product, an abstract machine representative and a manifested form of a ‘marketing design idea’. We argue that the purpose of designing a prototype is to find the manifestation that, in its simplest form, will filter the qualities in which the designer is interested without distorting the understanding of the whole.
#2 – 'Prototype In-Action'
Prototypes as interactive experiences/experiments. The prototype will be replicated in a modular system of interactive units and each unit will react to different stimuli either from users (proximity, motion, heart-rate) or the environment (light, noise, air quality). The aim is to trigger diverse and unexpected behaviours. In this materialization, the prototype not only acts as improving design as ‘problem-solving’, but in creating a space for designers to reflect upon the ideas, theories, logics, and implications of design in and through practice. That is to say, the intervention of an intellectual basis for ‘problem-finding
#3 – 'Prototype Inside-Out'
The prototype will display a video which will fully document all aspects of the ‘making-of’ of the interactive prototype in the exhibition. From hardware to software implementation, assembly and materials with testaments given by students and tutors revealing the ‘prototype as a discourse or authorship’. The documentation therefore offers a poetic and playful reflexion about the status of prototypes and design research in general.