Industrial and Product Design Commons^™

Beacon Public Library: Expanding Radical Civic Care For An Uncertain Future, Katrina Machado

Masters Theses

Stressors like climate change will put strain on our communities, making them more vulnerable. I am asserting and expanding the role of the public library as a civic space for radical care and community resilience. This work explores the ways in which the public library, as an existing institution, could adapt to the needs of its changing environment and community. Interventions are visualized by a librarian’s jumpsuit and library apron, an adapted library book cart, public signage, and a re-imagined library card.

I imagine a public library that pushes the bounds of its physical building and actively and compassionately serves …

Ars Technica, Bayan Mashrequi

Masters Theses

It’s easy to forget that we are living in an age of wonders, where the ability to perform feats that would have seemed divine miracles to our ancestors, has become mundane and routine to us. Even for people who are practitioners of this Modern Magic, the artificers and the sorcerers, the wonderfulness of the endeavor becomes difficult to appreciate most times.

Ars Technica serves a two-fold purpose here: for the uninitiated and the novice, this book aims to inspire and enable students, engineers and tech aficionados by highlighting the connection between mythology, literature, history and folklore with the wonders of …

The Art Of Microbe Maintenance: Value And Applications In Design, Yujin Hwang

Masters Theses

My thesis centers around designing microbial systems and objects for a sustainable future. I propose ideas to bring microbes into the home in order to make people understand them as a part of the environment. Through deep consideration of how my microbe based material could change across national and social contexts, I create accessible, attractive and friendly-looking design objects with microbes that address people’s fear of microbial life. I strive to facilitate the intersection and interaction between people and technologies in ways that are ultimately harmonious for the well being of both.

My ultimate goal for my thesis is not …

Distilling The Narragansett Bay, Parker Ives

Masters Theses

My thesis is an investigation of material vernacular and a celebration of process and material. I am manipulating locally sourced materials to pull out unexpected qualities in order to distill a unique identity associated with a place and the things that give that place its character.

The resulting work focuses on distilling the Narragansett Bay through the lens of three categories. Reminiscence, Impression, Composition. These works fall into the categories of being reminiscent of a place, impressed upon by a place and composed of a place.

This thesis is not a conclusion of this area of inquiry, rather it seeks …

Katti-Batti : A Digital Tool For Young Adolescents To Transgress The Limitations Of Gender Socialization Through Empathy & Friendship, Chetan Dusane

Masters Theses

The genesis of this project lies in the personal experiences that led me to believe that the culturally learned and perceived gender roles, norms, and expectations limit a person’s health, educational, professional, economic, and social abilities.

The work began by finding the evidence connecting the learned, perceived gender roles, norms, and allied cultural expectations to the ability to think freely. The research revealed the limiting effects of gender roles and norms on self-identity, personal belief systems, and a place’s culture. The study further led to uncovering the link between limiting personal belief systems and cultural environment to the lack of …

The Portal : A Tool For Uncertain Times, Sophie Engel

Masters Theses

My thesis is about imagining a Positive Apocalypse. Not a utopic version of the end times, but one that sees hope in the end of our current systems and ways of thinking; a future where at the end of the world, instead of reaching for your gun, you reach out to your neighbors. Most renderings of the apocalypse we see in popular culture stem from patriarchal fears of loss of control, chaos. Most narratives depicting the end of the world devolve into inevitable violence and extreme isolationism.

In the industrial design world, narratives are used as a way to sell …

Beyond Conscious: The Knowing Of Self-Owned Anxiety, Wenyu Du

Masters Theses

To achieve recognition of when we might under anxiety attack, the first step is to introduce the practice of expressing ourselves with wearable devices- Nudo for users to say “no”, “I am not in a good condition” with no words, gently reveal your emotional status and give you the sense of support. Nudo works like the defense mechanism of humans and gathers our body signals that are triggered from anxiety as a recording piece that allows users to track what’s happening during every specific moment. It also works as a reminder for those who might not recognize their own anxiety. …

Wild Things: Outdoor Toys For Nature Play, John Mawhorter

Masters Theses

Kids are increasingly plagued by what Richard Louv calls Nature Deficit Disorder; the litany of physical and mental health problems that result from lack of free play in nature. Wild Things is a modular toy system designed to inspire children to engage in nature play. Its reconfigurability allows it to vary its form to match the variety of natural forms.

Made of recycled sail material and shaped like a balloon seed pod, the central spheroid acts as a hub for a plethora of smaller forms that can be attached to it or each other via simple velcro straps. The abstract …

Inter - : Design For Fostering Action-Oriented Awareness Towards Sustainable Transition, Elena Danlei Huang

Masters Theses

In order to meet the need for sustainable transition, it is vital for the general public to be aware of the social and ecological interconnectedness within existential climate crisis, local sustainable development, and urban individual’s behavioral patterns. As a method to rebuild interconnectedness, this thesis explores design interventions for fostering action-oriented awareness towards sustainable transition. Jumping out from the current paradigm, it tries to connect the audience to alternative conceptual representations. An integrated theoretical model built around a local contextualized issue is proposed in the thesis, followed by a practice-based case project focusing on Rhode Island Squid Fishery as a …

Uncertainty Wanted: Deconstructing Gender Gap In Parenting Mentality, Zimeng Xiang

Masters Theses

Gender stereotypes propagate through generations like a loop without a clear start or end, constantly reinforcing and being reinforced by the constructed, gendered system of information around us. For this project, I take the start of parenthood - the moment when new parents begin to learn everything about newborn care - as a critical point to encourage gender-neutral parenthood and eventually, to fill the gender gap in parents’ mental load.

Designing For Space; Exploring Ways Of Simulating Nature And Everyday Activities In Zero-G Environment, Sayit Alisan

Masters Theses

As a great outcome of our advanced technology, we built a spacecraft called the International Space Station (ISS) that orbits the Earth within the thermosphere and where we situated a bunch of astronauts to do scientific research for a designated period of time. For the last 20 years, ISS has been running by different astronauts who had to live in a new environment which is completely different than where they used to live before. Since they live up there for at least 6 months, one way or another they start missing any earth-like experience such as being in nature, wind, …

Shoes For Advanced Urban Surfaces, Karan Buasakdi

Masters Theses

The journey to designing shoes that use irony and mischief of everyday life in Bangkok to criticize the social-political climate and challenge the norm. In the act of desacralization while trying not to get arrested with the problematic criminal code article 112, the Lèse-majesté law of Thailand.

The design is based on the designer's life growing up in Bangkok. The tax use priority in Thailand doesn’t reflect the life of its people. One of the most prominent features of Bangkok is its abandoned sidewalks. The abandonment of infrastructure is part of our lives as well as the feeling that we …

After Plastic Waste : Plastic Bottle Knitting Machine - Design For Value Of Recycling Plastic, Du Cheng

Masters Theses

Plastic is the cheapest and most versatile material invented by humans. But with it comes endless pollution. In the face of plastic waste, I need to establish a direct and effective plastic reuse method.

In order to limit plastic waste to a controllable range, I try to reduce the cost of recycled plastics and increase the value of recycled plastics. After research and experimentation, I created a method of turning plastic bottles into plastic cloth through cutting and knitting. This method and material provide a new direction for the reuse of plastics. For the creation of new reuse methods, it …

Rebuilt The Fading Vicinity, Yifan Du

Masters Theses

Something is missing on the scale between me and the whole world. That’s also the dilemma of the Millennials. The giant gap between the ego and the world builds an invisible wall. This invisible barrier makes us nonchalant toward the trivial things happening just right in front of us. Ironically, the nonchalance makes our society more emotional and drastic. We get outraged more easily compare to the past.

How should I invite people to appreciate and care more about our surroundings? How do I rebuild the fading vicinity? Those questions are the starting point of my thesis journey.

Living Objects, Katie Tzu Hua Huang

Masters Theses

Sometimes, I find myself sunk into my memories, during daytime when the sun illuminates through the seam of the shutters in my room, or at midnight, when the world is in deep silence.

The sound of flipping books brings me back to the time when my mom sat in the living room quietly, with a cup of hot black tea as always. At the time when she read, I always found a stream of light illuminating the table, covering her face partially. One page, two pages, and three pages; as she kept flipping, the repetitive sound made the quiet afternoon …

Move In The Internet, Jennifer Ziyuan Huang

Masters Theses

We work in front of computers and consume digital entertainment our leisure time. Our bodies need frequent consumption of varied movements for essential physiological processes, while screens cause prolonged stationary. Our bodies need good alignment to function well for a lifetime, while devices and chairs cause bad alignments. The goal of my thesis is to design objects to encourage body movements and good body alignments throughout the day. I hope to design for a sustainable state of well-being.

For my first project for the thesis, I looked into sitting. I designed a chair that allows people to switch between kneeling …

Indefinite Origin: Decentralizing Knowledge, Tong-June Moon

Masters Theses

The RISD Digital Commons notes that “graduate education is focused on producing original contributions to a field, based on research and advance practice."

What is collaborative thesis, and what value does it bring to the process?

Indefinite Origin, is a thesis advocating for knowledge to be decentralized and treated as a shared resource. Deviating from a focus on originality, it engages in the creation of knowledge as a collaborative effort. Design flexibility is practiced through intellectual humility, negotiating methodologies and welcoming chance. This thesis explores ideas from Furtherfield’s Do-It-With-Other (DIWO) or Do-It-Together (DIT)4 philosophies that promote synergy around commons5, cultural …

No Winners: Transgender Athletes In Cycling, Max Pratt

Masters Theses

Up until very recently, and in many ways still today, the world of cycling has been reserved for those with privilege. Professional racing has found itself in hot water, carrying gender discrimination, transphobia, and elitism throughout its avenues. Those in power are under constant pressure from all sides to make decisions that influence our entire industry.

This work explores the struggles of transgender and gender nonconforming cyclists in the context of competitive racing. Through documentary and design, we aim to bring these conversations to the forefront of the sport, and visualize what the future of cycling may look like for …

Inside The Bubble 2.0, Sunny Yuqing Ma

Masters Theses

As a designer, I use speculation to observe. I use design to express. I want to hit people's souls directly. I want to create unexpected sparks through relaxed storytelling.

A Family Game: Tell The Stories That Shape Us, Zhuoyan Xie

Masters Theses

There are a lot of books and theories on the market to help improve our communication skills and relationship with others. However, they hardly mention that the fundamental principle behind our relationship to others is how we understand and accept ourselves. The thesis aims to promote our understanding of our own identity and identities of our family members. It is worthy to mention that the thesis is conducted in a Chinese context. The thesis mainly learned from Non-violent communication and theories about identity, especially narrative identity. The deliverables are a set of narrative cards and prompts that can be played …

Zoomorphic Extended Body, Nicholas Tamas

Masters Theses

My thesis work is built around emerging technologies within the fields of prosthetic and robotics. The end result is a speculative proposal with how to expand the potential modes of use with these emerging technologies to extend and build upon their potential uses.

Kitsch Study And Chinese Kitsch Market, Jiaqi Ellie Liu

Masters Theses

From the old industrial age to the new information age, the accumulation of capital has led to the monopoly of the assets and technology of large enterprises, and the pressure of the middle class is increasing day by day.

At the same time, informatization has led to a substantial increase in the next round of energy and material needs, and therefore human needs for thinking, physical and emotional needs have also increased. Kitsch can meet the thinking and emotional needs of the public. Therefore, it has become the mainstream contemporary aesthetics.

Kitsch art & design are easier to be loved …

+ One : A New Companionship, Vivien Mengjiao Han

Masters Theses

+ one is a service that will make pets and their senior owners’ companionship better. By using the home surveillance camera that users already had and machine learning technology to create a matching system that will match with other owners and pets who have similar characteristics in the community, and recommended the appropriate design or products to the user. Our products not only have a series of multifunction daily necessities for both pets and their senior owners but also have a DIY section. The users can download design patterns, and create it at home, experience it before actually buy our …

Mimesis : Human-Centered Digital Profiling Visual Identity, Yangyang Ding

Masters Theses

Digital profiling is the process of gathering and analyzing information that exists online about an individual. Platforms who provide services always have control of this powerful tool. As a result, I used Twitter API as the principle medium to conduct 'digital profiling' as a third party. The visual identity of the new digital profile is not an ads interest list anymore, but a graph that stores personal information that could be used as an avatar. On top of the new visual identity, I speculated several possible applications of the new visual outcome. The idea put forward in this thesis is …

Night Knights: Reminding Children That Their Nighttime Fear Isn't Something They Have To Face Alone, Ji Hyung Moon

Masters Theses

Night Knights are shining toy guardians that children bring to life through play. They engage children’s imagination that inevitably fuels their nighttime fear, and provide a chance to create stories of bravely confronting their fears through their Night Knights.

Surviving In A Gregarious World, Shiyang Yao

Masters Theses

Contemporary living leads to advanced communication and transport networks that people nowadays are more likely to live in a solo life. Even so, society has incorporated perceptions of single people and a biased assumption that single people are lonely. Loneliness is a big problem, but being single isn’t a problem that needs to be solved. Some people choose to be single. We should challenge the social norm that being alone is the same as being lonely. My research begins with my own experience growing up in China, but the bias against single people happens everywhere regardless of country or culture. …

Experience The World: How The Ever-Present Accessibility Of Hands-On Opportunities & Play Enhance Logistical Learning, Mary E. Chavez

Masters Theses

Living in a digital age, it is imperative--now more than ever--that children engage in hands-on, experiential learning activities to ensure that their ability to relate to the world is not compromised by technology. Children actively need playful, open-ended and self-directed mental stimulation for their young brains to develop and grow. Public school standards stifle a child’s right to succeed in alternative strengths and inhibit opportunities for self-exploration and self-expression. Game design and fort construction are examples of accessible, hands-on activities in which a child can creatively immerse themselves. In doing so, they can begin to interact with the tangible world, …

Lift A Life, Vidur Madhav

Masters Theses

This project analyzes the role that culture and demographics play in interventions within a pre-existing system network. The research is geared towards understanding how healthcare systems demand different solutions across cultural and geographical boundaries. My work acknowledges and highlights the unimportance given to non-clinical services which results in a stark contrast between the ground reality versus the theory of healthcare design. To approach these larger domains of region-specific healthcare problems, I conducted research in the form of case studies, interviews, and on-site observation on three levels: urban tier 1, urban tier 2, and rural. The resultant design, essentially a culmination …

Togather: To Gather Together, Kyungah Sohn

Masters Theses

I believe that we can live healthier lives when we address both our mental health and our physical health at the same time, rather than when we focus on only one of them. Currently, however, mental and physical health are treated as separate issues, while actually they are closely connected to each other. In light of this, services and applications that address wellbeing should promote both physical and mental issues in a more integrated way.

As a result, I designed a holistic system where what we do for mental and physical health is intertwined. This is the premise for my …

The Objects Around Us., Rohit Sen

Masters Theses

The book is based on two paleolithic design concepts that I have arrived at: ‘Use & Dispose’ and ‘Find & Assemble.’ The first concept is based on our innate paleolithic instinct to throw away objects after the need for it has been extinguished. This theory is based on the understanding of the ‘value-effort’ relationship in relation to stone tools. The second concept is based on the circular model of ‘designing under duress,’ and how the objects around us can be recontextualised and assembled to serve a purpose to meet emergent needs under constraints.

These two concepts then go on to …