How do you make a city park more ‘lively’? Students from the Interactive Environments minor took on the challenge and came up with creative designs.
How do you transform a transition area such as the Mekelpark – where you cross the park just to get from one faculty to the other – into a destination in itself? Students from the interactive environments minor tapped into their creativity to think about making a city park more ‘lively’.
TU Delft TV visited three project groups, all tasked with an open design brief issued by the Science Centre.
Creatures
Computer Science and Engineering student Eljo Dorrestijn and his team built small creatures that could live in the Mekelpark. “These creatures mimic the behaviour of people passing by. The people can interact with the creatures which would make the park feel more alive.” While building their prototype, the team saw that it’s very important to not only keep iterating, but “to keep building and testing these iterations to improve the interaction,” explains Dorrestijn.
Guido
For Angela Hanna (Industrial Design Engineering) and her team, the brief was primarily a reality check. “You can have big plans, but in reality, you have to face facts and simplify some stuff if you want to achieve them.” The team ultimately built ‘Guido’, an interactive installation that allows people to experience something unexpected. Hanna explains that “It lets people forget about their problems for a while.”
- The Guido interactive installation is nominated for the MAB Student Awards 2021 and will be presented in an online exhibition from 28 June – 2 July.
Bringing the buzz back
During these Covid times, most TU Delft students and employees work from home. To bring some buzz back to campus the third project group built an installation that is connected to those working remotely. But it did not come without a struggle, says Koen Weber (Industrial Design Engineering). “We discovered that it was quite hard to give people in the digital world a physical representation.” They eventually succeeded by creating bits that make a buzzing noise that was louder or quieter depending on the number of people working from home.
Lecturer Aadjan van den Berg was very surprised by the designs. All the students started with a blank canvas and even the supervisors didn’t know what would emerge. “It shows the creativity of the teamwork to grab an opportunity and come up with something great for any problem.”
- Find out more about the Interactive Environments minor and this year’s designs here.
TU Delft TV / TU Delft TV is a collaboration between Delta and the Science Centre. The crew consists of TU Delft students.
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