Dr Sharon Baurley

Sharon Baurley is Head of Design, School of Engineering & Design, Brunel University. She joined Brunel in May 2010, and was formerly at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design (UAL). She has conducted both doctoral and post-doctoral research at the Royal College of Art, London, Musashino Art University, Tokyo, and John Moores University, Liverpool. Her principal focus was developing three-dimensional textile materials for clothing through transferring technology from the technical and engineered textiles to design. Her current research focuses on the integration of electronic textiles into clothing for new social digital applications. She has collaborated with Vodafone and HP Labs, and is currently working with Horizon, a Digital Economy Research Hub funded by the RCUK Digital Economy programme.

She has consulted for Courtaulds Textiles, London, Gianni Versace, Milan, Marks & Spencer, London, and Unilever, UK, and produced design work for Design Intelligence, UK, and Mantero, Italy. She has been awarded numerous national and international design awards including the Josef Otten Award for Technical Innovation and the Ideacomo Award for Printing and Dyeing from the Japanese Fashion Foundation.

Sharon has lectured in technical textiles and design at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London, the Royal College of Art, London, Musashino Art University, Tokyo and Nagoya University of Arts, Nagoya, Japan, the Architectural Association, London, and Kingston University.

Sharon is a member of AHRC Peer Review College, has conducted peer review for the Leverhulme Trust, the EPSRC, and the Technology Strategy Board. She is a member of the Academic Group of the TechniTex Faraday Partnership; a member of the commissioning panel for the AHRC initiative 'Beyond Text', and a panel member for the RCUK Digital Economy ‘Research in the Wild’ scheme. She sits on the advisory group of the Smart Materials Sector, Materials KTN. Sharon is also a London Technology Network business fellow.

Research Interests

Keywords: co-design + participatory culture, interaction + emotion, design probes, smart materials + digital technology, open design + fabrication, digital tools + the internet of things, crowd sourcing, product hacking

We adopt and appropriate material products to define ourselves. Digital communications technologies increasingly share common attributes with material products in terms of how they enable people to construct an identity, to be expressive and form communities. The revolutionary growth of digital media and communications is allowing groups and individuals to collaborate, create and share their own material and ideas.

When material products converge with digital technology and materials science, what will happen? We can’t anticipate all of the end-use applications in advance because what actually happens in practice is the emergent outcome of user dynamics. How can we gain prior knowledge of emergent behavior?

I am concerned with new types of design products that involve the fusion of the real and digital, and how materials science can realise this interplay. I am interested in how design can be pivotal in brokering collaborative activity between these disparate experts, as well as with users/consumers, and provide a new way for digital and materials science to ideate latent product concepts and create new markets. I am interested in ‘design for appropriation’, and in how users can design what they consume using social technologies and digital design and fabrication tools.

‘Open Design’ Research Group

Open design is about fostering “a culture of experimentation as a driver of innovation … encouraging bottom-up or emergent experimentation” (Tim Brown, IDEO), where consumers are engaged with experts to design what they consume. Through open design experiments we can ideate new product concepts by combining ‘open design’ digital tools and social technologies with facilitated collaborative activity between subject-specialists and members of the public. The Open Design research group comprises:

Self creation and the generation of user led objects and services. (PhD funded by Horizon Digital Economy Research – Sept 2011-Sept 2014): The aim of this research is to investigate how different communities could embrace the emergent communities of open design for citizen science research. This will specifically engage with free agents who are gathering data within their environment. The study will look at the process, pitfalls and areas that need to be resolved in order to enable open design to work in this field. Design can formalise products ensuring accuracy and open up their capabilities for global use. http://www.rdphillips.co.uk

Switching & Stitching. (PhD funded by Horizon Digital Economy Research - October 2010-October 2013) New design approaches for wearable technologies: User-led design and production of novel modular garment platforms that take into account the role (fashion) design can play in increasing mainstream consumer acceptance of the form factors suggested by the limits of the technology. http://switching-stitching.com/in_stitches

An exploration of multi functional woven electronic textile by design practice. (PhD – October 2010-October 2013) The aim of this research is to develop a series of innovative woven e-textiles that will expand into a range of e-textiles modules with integrated connections to create a modular system. The modular design provides adaptable and multifunctional textiles that will be investigated by design led research into appropriation for contexts of use and applications. http://www.weft-lab.com

Artefact Café pilot project – funded by Horizon Digital Economy Research (July 2011–July 2012)

Artefact Café seeks to use an open and user-led design approach to unleash the social and economic transformational impact that digital tools and fabrication hubs can potentially have on creativity and social innovation within a local context, which serves as a public repository of knowledge and culture. The project involves Dr Sharon Baurley and Dr Sarah Silve of Brunel University, Dr George Kuk of the Nottingham University Business School, Dr Joel Segal, University of Nottingham. http://artefactcafe.wordpress.com
Creative Industries KTN blog feature

Current Research

From 2012 to 2014 I will be a PI on User Innovation Communities: Digital Tools for Cultural Production (EP/I032061/1), a project funded by the Digital Economy Programme 'Research in the Wild' scheme. This £300K project seeks to bring the creative public (including user groups and communities) to work alongside producers and manufacturers (including professional designers), by mindfully harvesting public contributions as cultural resources to transform traditional in-house design and reduce R&D wastage, and to induce creativity, and social innovation. We will collaborate with Marks and Spencer to build and test a digital platform that facilitates contribution to the cultural production of design, exploitation of existing digital tools, and development of new tools. The platform will make available an array of digital tools to encourage interactivity and to further contribute to a register of cultural resources in terms of a wiki of design artifacts (product forms, functions, etc.), and repertories of 'data' on how users perceive, appropriate and incorporate products into their lives, how well products fulfill their needs, how they imbue meaning and explore their individual, social and cultural identities through them, and how communities are formed through consumption and use. The cultural register will provide a repository of cultural resources, which encourage reuse across and within different socio-cultural and business contexts. The project also involves Dr George Kuk of the Nottingham University Business School, and Horizon Digital Economy Research.

From 2010-2011 I will be co-investigator on an RCUK ‘Connected Communities’ Programme project, Community Web2.0: creative control through hacking (AH/I507620/1). This £40K feasibility study will explore the extent to which parallels between virtual society (Internet) and actual society (communities) may be extended in such a way that helps make sense of both the opportunities and risks of the Big Society for communities. Specifically we will explore a concept of Community Hacking, the capacity for individuals within groups to develop creative social solutions that transgress established protocols for the betterment of their lives. The project involves Edinburgh College of Art (Architecture), Brunel (Design) and University of Leicester (Geography). http://www.communityhacking.org

From 2009 to 2012 I will be PI on Digital Sensoria (EP/H007083/2), a project funded by the RCUK Digital Economy Programme. This two-year £775K feasibility study arose out of the EPSRC’s ‘Design in the Digital Economy sandpit: For the People, by the People’, held in December 2008. Digital Sensoria will provide designers, customers, corporations and communities with a new language that will enable them to communicate peoples’ sensory perceptions of designs and real products through rich multi-modal digital interfaces. This highly multi-disciplinary project will be carried out by Dr Sharon Baurley of Brunel University (PI), Dr Penelope Watkins, LCF (Co-I) of the University of the Arts London, Professor Michael Chantler (Co-I) of Heriot-Watt University, Dr. Marco Aurisicchio (Co-I) of Imperial College London, Dr Nadia Berthouze (Co-I) of University College London Interaction Centre. http://www.digitalsensoria.com

From 2009 to 2014 I will be a ‘spoke’ (£187,500) on the University of Nottingham's Research Hub, Horizon (EP/G065802/1), funded by the RCUK Digital Economy Programme. My area of research is 'open design and the digital economy'. This five-year £40M research centre at The University of Nottingham will develop digital technology to transform modern living. The University of Nottingham centre will develop new ways to use the electronic ‘footprints’ we leave behind whenever we use mobile, internet and other digital technologies, and new ways to utilize digital technologies to help business and stimulate economic growth. The Hub is based at Nottingham, with ‘spokes’ of input from the Universities of Cambridge, Reading, Exeter and Brunel University. I will contribute to the activities of the Horizon as a mini-spoke. http://www.horizon.ac.uk

Current knowledge transfer

From 2012 to 2013 I will work with the University for the Creative Arts (UCA) on Open Innovation Network for Expertise in Design (COINED) funded by the JISC Business and Community Engagement Programme: Access to Resources and Open Innovation Phase 2. This £99K project will seek to define, operate and test an innovation workflow that enables creative arts/design researchers and industry partners to co-develop innovation assets; test support and guidance resources, mechanisms for managing IP and the application of user-centred/ sustainable design tools; and fosters, captures and analyses user feedback and evaluation data. The project team comprises: Uwe Derkson and Neil Bottle of UCA, Sharon Baurley and Stephen Green of Brunel University.

Previous Research

Between 2004 and 2007 I coordinated the EPSRC network: Smart Textiles for Intelligent Consumer Products (GR/S47007/01). This £50K project aimed to push-on smart textiles development by projecting the future of intelligent products through project identification workshops, and in so doing created formal channels of communication between the disparate sectors involved. These workshops explored experimental methods that were design-led, in order to facilitate across disciplines to promote shared understanding, and knowledge sharing and creation. The network remains active through the maintenance of its web site, and through its work with the Materials KTN. http://www.smartextiles.co.uk

From 2003 to 2006 I held an AHRC-funded Research Fellowship looking at Interactive and Experiential Design in Smart Textile Products and Applications (Communication-Wear) (AR15760). During this £252K project I developed concepts of clothing as tools for touch communication using smart textile systems and communication technologies, which were used as research probes in user study work. We looked into whether established sensory associations people have with the tactile qualities of textiles could be used as signs and metaphors for experiences, moods, and gestures, related to interpersonal touch. Project contributors included HP Labs, and Vodafone, and project collaborators included Philippa Brock (Central Saint Martins) and Andrew Moore. http://www.designprobes.com

In 2005 I was Co-Investigator on, and principal author of, The Emotional Wardrobe (EP/C516281/1) EPSRC/AHRC Designing for the 21st Century research cluster. This £60K project was comprised of a multi-disciplinary group that included members from textile and fashion design (CSM), mobile communications (Vodafone Future Studies), computing (HP Labs, Equator IRC), informatics (University of Bradford), electronics and intelligent systems (Imperial College London). The central idea of The Emotional Wardrobe was to determine what the catalysts and drivers of future consumer wearable technology might be by synthesising current conventions and cultures of expressive and communicative capabilities of both fashion/clothing and mediated communications. The Emotional Wardrobe group experimented with design-led techniques that promoted a 'thinking through doing' approach as a valid form of investigation and understanding, and to address issues of multi-disciplinary collaboration. The Network is still active and partners with various organisations to host events and workshops. http://www.emotionalwardrobe.com

In 1998/99 I was a Visiting Research Fellow at Liverpool Art School, John Moores University, Liverpool (£19,660).

In 1995/96 I held a Leverhulme Trust Study Abroad Studentship, looking into 'Contemporary Japanese Textile Making', based at Musashino Art University, Tokyo (£20K).

Teaching

Module leader for DM5561 Creativity and Aesthetic Awareness (MSc Integrated Product Design)

Module teaching contributor on DM1315 Design Process 1 (BSc product Design, BA Industrial Design)

Supervision level 3 BSc/BA major projects; MSC Integrated Product Design thesis projects; MA Design Strategy thesis projects; PhD.

Conference Contributions

• Synergies : design-smart materials-ubicomp. Ubiquitous Computing at a Crossroads Workshop: Art, Science, Politics and Design. UbiComp Grand Challenge Initiative, Imperial College London, UK, 6 & 7 January 2009
• Interactive and Experiential Design in Smart Textile Products and Applications. 2AD: The Second International Conference on Appliance Design, Hewlett-Packard Labs, Bristol, UK, February 2004

Invited Lectures

• The Emotional Wardrobe: Probing the Developers and the Users. Probing Experience II: The Impact of Context on Behavioural and Physiological Experience Measurements. Philips Research, High Tech Campus, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, 1 October 2008
• Developments in Smart Textiles & Clothing. Materials Congress 2008, Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, UK, May 2008
• The Emotional Wardrobe: Synergies between Fashion and Digital Communications. UK Polymer Showcase 2007: Innovative Materials, London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London, UK, September 2007
• Using Design as a Probe to Scope Unknown Product Spaces. How to Enter Technical Textile Markets 4 Symposium, Porto, Portugal. International Newsletters, March 2007
• A Film Presentation of Communication-Wear. How Smart are We? Design Plus, RIBA, London, UK, September 2006
• New Textile Developments and the Implications for Designers in the Context of Future Social Landscapes. Hewlett-Packard Labs Mobile Bristol Seminar Series, Bristol, UK, 17 November 2005
• Electronics and Sensors in Textiles and Clothing - An Overview. How to Enter Technical Textiles Markets 3 Symposium, Ghent, Belgium. International Newsletters Inc., November 2005
• Smart Textiles and their Application in Clothing. International Conference on Nanotechnology, Hong Kong (Hong Kong Productivity Council), August 2005
• Smart Materials used in Design and Fashion, Engineering Art Network launch, Tate Modern, 15 April 2005
• Printed Electronics and Smart Textiles. Pira Printed Electronics Conference, London, UK, September 2004

Exhibitions

• Plasticity: 100 Years of Making Plastics, Science Museum London, UK, 2007-2010
• Insane About the Membrane, University of Brighton, UK, 12 January-7 February 2004 (curated by Leo Santos-Shaw)
• Tactile Dimensions: Shibori Now, Alexandra Palace, London, UK, 10-13 October 2002 (curated by Yoshiko Wada)
• Artists at Work: New Technology in Textile and Fibre Art, Museo Del Tessuto, Prato, Italy, 18 September-3 November 2002 (juried)
• Challenge of Materials Gallery, Science Museum London, UK, 1999-present (curated by Dr Sue Mossman)

Peer esteem

• 2009: Reviewer for KEER2010 (International Conference on Kansei Engineering and Emotion Research)
• 2009: Reviewer for CHI 2010 (ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems)
• 2009-2010: Member of ‘Research in the Wild’ panel, RCUK Digital Economy Programme
• 2009-2010: Member of programme committee for the Third International Conference on Advances in Computer-Human Interactions (ACHI) (Digital World 2010)
• 2008-present: Assessor for Technology Strategy Board, Creative Industries, UK
• 2008-2009: Member of commissioning panel for AHRC ‘Beyond Text’ initiative
• 2006-present: Member of the Smart Materials Sector advisory group, Materials KTN, UK
• 2006-2011: Member of Smart Materials and Systems Committee, IOM, UK
• 2006: Reviewer for ISWC 2006 (IEEE International Symposium on Wearable Computers)
• 2005-present: Member of AHRC Peer Review College, UK
• 2005: Peer review for the Leverhulme Trust, UK
• 2004-2011: Advisory Committee, Avantex/Techtextil Symposium, Germany
• 2004: Steering group member, IEE Eurowearable Conference, UK

Design awards

• 1997: The Josef Otten Award for Technical Innovation, 'Texprint', Indigo, Paris
• 1992: 'Ideacomo' Award for Printing and Dyeing, British Finalist, International Textile Design Contest, Fashion Foundation, Tokyo
• 1991: 'Osborne and Little' Award, New Designers, Business Design Centre, London

Media appearances

• 13 July 2011. Online clothes shopping gets the human touch, New Scientist
• September 2006: Technofile feature, Sky News
• August 2006: BBC Worldservice Digital Planet programme
• November 2004: BBC MaterialWorld programme on smart clothing and wearable technology
• May 2004: BBC Worldservice ‘Go Digital’ programme
• August 2003: BBC Radio 4 ‘Shop Talk’ programme on ‘Smart Clothing’
• January 2001: Sky News feature on future textile materials, broadcast during London Fashion Week

Publications

Journal Papers

(2005) Baurley, S., Smart clothing and emotion, Textile Asia 36 (10) : 47- 51

(2004) Baurley, S., Interactive and experiential design in smart textile products and applications, Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 8 (3-4) : 274- 281

Conference Papers

(2012) Hughes, L., Atkinson, D., Bianchi-Berthouze, N. and Baurley, S., Crowdsourcing emotional and tactile garment perceptions, Designing Interactive Systems

(2012) Hughes, L., Atkinson, D., Bianchi-Berthouze, N. and Baurley, S., Crowdsourcing an emotional wardrobe, ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

(2011) Methven, T., Orzechowski, PM., Chantler, M., Baurley, S. and Atkinson, D., Comparison of crowd-sourcing vs. traditional techniques for deriving consumer terms, Digital Engagement 2011

(2011) Atkinson, D., Padilla, S., Chantler, M. and Baurley, S., Synthesising design methodologies for the transmission of tactile qualities in digital media, Digital Engagement 2011, http://de2011.computing.dundee.ac.uk

(2011) Orzechowski, PM., Atkinson, D., Padilla, S., Methven, TS., Baurley, S. and Chantler, M., Interactivity to enhance perception: Does increased interactivity in mobile visual presentation tools facilitate more accurate rating of textile properties?, 13th International Conference on Human Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services, MobileHCI '11 - Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Human Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services 629- 634

(2007) Baurley, S., Brock, P., Geelhoed, E. and Moore, A., Communication-wear: User feedback as part of a co-design process, Haptic and Audio Interaction Design

(2007) Baurley, S., Brock, P., Geelhoed, E. and Moore, A., Communication-wear, Transitive Materials: Towards an Integrated Approach to Material Technology Workshop as part of Ubicomp 2007

(2007) Baurley, S., Brock, P. and Geelhoed, E., Communication-wear: User feedback as part of a co-design process (1),

(2005) Randall, C., Baurley, S. and Brock, P., Sensor sleeve: Sensing affective gestures, 9th International Symposium on Wearable Computers, Workshop proceedings on Body Sensing

(2004) Randall, C., Baurley, S., Chalmers, M. and Muller, H., Textile tools for wearable computing, 1st International Forum for Applied Wearable Computing

(2003) Baurley, S., Smart textile products & applications, Fibrous Assemblies at the Design and Engineering Interface

(2003) Baurley, S., Smart textiles for future intelligent consumer products, IEE Eurowearable, 2003

(1995) Dabnichki, P. and Baurley, SL., Emotionally-responsive clothing for leisure and exercise activities, Congress of the International Society of Biomechanics

Book Chapters

(2011) Wu, D., Wu, T-I., Singh, H., Padilla, S., Atkinson, D., Bianchi-Berthouze, N., Chantler, M. and Baurley, S., The affective experience of handling digital fabrics: Tactile and visual cross-modal effects. In: D'Mello, S., Graesser, A., Schuller, B. and Martin, J-C. eds. Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction: Part 1. Berlin/Heidelberg : Springer (6974 LNCS) : 427- 436

(2011) Baurley, S., The role of design in facilitating multi-disciplinary collaboration in wearable technology. In: Westerink, J., Krans, M. and Ouwerkerk, M. eds. Sensing Emotions: The Impact of Context on Experience Measurements. London : Springer Verlag (12) : 181- 195

(2010) Baurley, S., Geelhoed, G., Brock, P. and Moore, A., Communication wear: User feedback as part of a co-design process. In: Gebhardt, J., Greif, H., Raycheva, L., Lobet-Maris, C. and Lasen, A. eds. Experiencing Broadband Society. Frankfurt am Main : Peter Lang Publishing Group (2)

(2007) Geelhoed, E., Reid, J., Hull, R. and Baurley, S., Probing experiences: Logs, traces, self-report and a sense of wonder. In: Westerink, JHDM., Ouwerkerk, M., Overbeek, TJM., Pasveer, WF. and de Ruyter, B. eds. Probing Experience: From Assessment of User Emotions and Behaviour to Development of Products. Dordrecht, The Netherlands : Springer-Verlag -

(2007) Baurley, S. and Stead, L., The emotional wardrobe. In: Inns, T. ed. Designing for the 21st Century: Interdisciplinary Questions and Insights. Gower Publishing Limited 273- 298

(2005) Baurley, S., Interaction design in smart textiles clothing. In: Tao, X. ed. Wearable Electronics and Photonics. Woodhead Publishing (No. 46)