Today, design implies not only compliance with product technical-functional requirements but also with increasingly broader cultural demands for correct life cycle performance with regard to man and the environment: sensory attributes and sustainability respectively. The various disciplines involved have made considerable progress recently, developing tools and methods that, interconnected and also with the development of neuro-sciences, are able to furnish ever more realistic, scientific and objective explanations of how we perceive the world. Sensory Evolution, Spin-off of Politecnico di Torino now being set up, places sensory and sustainability analysis of products/services at different stages of development (from concept to the meta-project, to the project, to the existing product) at the core of the offer. Sensory Evolution proposes new, original tools and methods, also patented by the same team, and have transformed theoretical and scientific innovations into strategic instruments dedicated to both large, small and medium enterprises, such as the ICS (Innovation, Comprehension Sustainability) methodology. This methological approach is a unique, innovative reality that may entail major advantages for clients. The approach adopted neither precludes nor underestimates the major theoretical weight underlying this offer model. In this way Sensory Evolution addresses companies that produce something perceptible, such as product or service. General TermsDesign, Human Factors, Theory. KeywordsDesign project, materials and products, sensory and sustainable profile. Figure 3. Eye tracking: example of Heatmaps test on virtual models of car seat projects. The "hot" (red) intense zones represent the areas of the stimulus observed to a major extent by the subjects.
Is there a new material for use in jewelry, matching gold and precious stones, capable of maintaining the same perception of "preciousness" but that is also more sustainable, ethical, and inexpensive? This article deals with a case study within the European EcoDesign Network research project, aimed at investigating how sustainable design can help prestigious companies pinpoint new materials for the creation of jewelry, focusing on new and environmentally friendly opportunities while preserving their market position and target audience. Qualitative and quantitative analyses were performed. Adopting the exploring design path, a jewelry background analysis pointed out both stereotypes and possible innovations in the jewelry field: an analysis was carried out on the perception of jewels by a panel guided by a cognitive ergonomics specialist, also using the eye-tracking machine to examine participants' reactions to the jewelry involved in the study, and to establish paradigms of sustainability, preciousness, and innovation. Several meta-project proposals regarding innovations in materials and finishing were hypothesized and tested, following the main guidelines and principles of ecodesign. Lastly, a prototyping phase and some mechanical tests were implemented to verify the hypotheses of innovation. The results allowed the creation of a first set of sustainable jewelry, currently on the market.
The design of cultural and environmental goods can aim at valorising both material and immaterial cultural heritage at different scales. Specifically, the merchandising product, which is often the victim of production stereotypes, can instead collaborate with a disruptive force in the construction of the non-ephemeral "sense" of a visit. It is, in fact, able to spread complex contents in scientifically correct and comprehensible ways for different targets, condensing the immaterial patrimony into (small) new, low-cost and rich-in-meaning artefacts. This case study, proposed as evidence of such an approach, pertains to a research and teaching activity that was developed in 2017 with 230 university students of design, with the aim of setting up a collection of dedicated merchandising products for a regional talc mine Ecomuseum. The challenge involved narrating the material culture of the location through products that were philologically coherent with the context, but new from the language, functionality, productivity, user involvement and economic accessibility points of view. The resulting projects are, at present, being screened by the Ecomuseum in order to select the most significant for future production. In conclusion, the activity was shown to be potentially scalable and repeatable in other contexts, in which design can valorise an intangible heritage of immense value through products that, inserted into a more extensive strategy of valorisation of the cultural heritage, are within the reach of all.
Understanding, using, imitating and exploiting nature are diffuse methods aimed at producing innovative materials and solutions able to interact with user and environment in an innovative and sustainable manner. The paper will propose some discussions on the current situation and on the future scenarios for the "natural materials" class. New natural materials (around 40 materials coming from different living kingdoms) have been studied through a multicriteria analysis, which considers the environmental impact of materials, in a qualitative way, and their artificial thickness. How much these new materials can be considered natural and whether or not their artificial thickness is still compatible with the definition of natural will be two leading questions in the contribution. The work will open a discussion on the difference between a "natural material" and a "sustainable material", with attention to the aspects of renewability of resources, end of life scenarios, productive chain length and artificial thickness.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.