Researchers

Project Leader: Dr Sharon Baurley

Research project title: User Innovation Communities

Research area: Open design and the digital economy

Overview of research:

User Innovation Communities: Digital Tools for Cultural Production (EP/I032061/1), is 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 a retail brand 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 artefacts (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 the Horizon Digital Economy Research Institute.

The project is being run in parallel with Artefact Café: http://artefactcafe.wordpress.com/

Email: Grit.Hartung@brunel.ac.uk

Project Leader: Dr. Sharon Baurley

Research project title: User Innovation Communities (UIC) – Digital tools for cultural production – Making Things Better

Research area: Open design in the Digital Economy

Keywords: creative communication, cross-disciplinary practice + thinking, open design, inclusive design, co-creation, creative + social platforms, information + skill + knowledge creation + -sharing, physical + digital creative tools, no gadgets, connected everything, language + coding systems, magic

Overview of research:

The User Innovation Communities: Digital Tools for Cultural Production (EP/I032061/1) is a project funded by the Digital Economy Programme 'Research in the Wild' scheme.

This £300K project seeks to brings together the creative public with manufacturers and producers with a lens to explore and develop how open design processes and co-creation can induce better products, supply-chains and product lives, through theoretical and practical reviews in open design, 3D production and open design, creative and social platform developments.

We collaborate with a retail brand and explore how mindful public contribution and open design processes can trigger creativity and facilitate social innovation, sharing and enhancing knowledge and skills on target and in line with business acumen.

We will exploit and test existing digital and non-digital tools, and develop new ones, that encourage meaningful interactivities, that are viable and true to our daily experiences and to what happens in the world.

UIC seeks to connect the creative public with manufacturers and producers through a shared open design and knowledge platform, online and in physical local fabrication hubs, Artefact Cafes, a UIC sister project http://artefactcafe.wordpress.com

Publications / Published Design work

• Lesikon der Visuellen Kommunikation, contributing author, (2011)
• Article “Genetic Communication” as part of the RCA Woodhillpark Critical Forum, MA CAAD = conveyor and author (2006)
• “Digital by Design” book by Troika, publisher Thames & Hudson = contributing design assistant(2008)
• DBA Inclusive Design Challenge = freelance publication designer (2006-2010)
• Innovate magazine = freelance publication designer (2007-2010)

Design work featured in

• étapes – Design and visual Culture
• Viewpoint magazine
• Designweek

Awards

• Design for Our Future Selves Award, finalist, RCA Helen Hamlyn Centre(2006 & 2007)
• Art Book Prize, winner, Thames & Hudson, RCA Society(2006)
• DAAD Scholarship, Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (2005)

Exhibitions:

• Political Objects, Frameless Gallery (2011)
• Graphic Design Walk, Space, London (2011)
• Interventions, The Ex Libris Gallery, Newcastle University(2010)
• No Man Is An Island, The Empire, London (2006)
• Generation, Summer Show, Royal College of Art, London (2006)

Exhibition design:

• Innovate! exhibition  New products, new entrepreneurs, new ventures from the Royal College of Art. – InnovationRCA, during the Dyson Building opening in Battersea in collaboration with product designers Oscar Narud and Amy Hunting (2012, upcoming 2013)

Teaching:

• L1 and L3 part-time lecturer and tutor Graphic Communication with Olinkha Gustafson-Pearce and Alan Mannion

Creative Consultant / Communication Design, clients include:

• Plümo (since 2012)
• Scott Batty Architect (since 2011)
• EVO Electric (2010-2011)
• Michael O’Sullivan Architecture and Design (2010)
• InnovationRCA (since 2006)
• RCA Helen Hamlyn Centre (since 2006)

Part-time RA & Communication Designer

• Imperial College, Social Computing Group, shared position with Dr Alan Outten (May to Nov 2009)

Start-up member

• bLink with Manolis Kelaidis, Business Incubator, Design London, (Mar to June 2008)

Freelance Creative Consultant / Communication Design

• W+K London (Oct 2010)
• Selfridges (July 2010)
• Imperial College, Computational Photochemistry (2009)
• Troika Art & Design (2007, July to Sept 2008, 2011

Corporate Designer, training

• MetaDesign Berlin, Ger (July to Sept 2004)

Freelance Graphic Designer, Berlin:

• Selanra Grafikdesign; Töchter und Söhne. HdK; grappa.dor (2001 to 2004)

Freelance photographer

• Cargolifter World GmbH; (June to Nov 2000)

Email: fulian.qiu@brunel.ac.uk

Personal Website: http://people.brunel.ac.uk/~dtstffq

Project Leader: Professor David Harrison

Research project title: PowerWeave

Research area: Development of Textiles for Electrical Energy Generation and Storage

Overview of research:

Design, Fabrication and Characterisation of Electrochemical Double Layer Super-capacitors

Publications:

• (2010) Abbott, Andrew P.; Qiu, Fulian; Abood, Hadi M. A.; et al.,  Double layer, diluent and anode effects upon the electrodeposition of aluminium from chloroaluminate based ionic liquids,  PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY CHEMICAL PHYSICS 12 (8): 1862-1872
• (2010) Qiu, Fulian; Taylor, Alasdair W.; Men, Shuang; et al., An ultra-high vacuum-spectroelectrochemical study of the dissolution of copper in the ionic liquid (N-methylacetate)-4-picolinium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide, PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY CHEMICAL PHYSICS 12 (8): 1982-1990 
• (2008) Qiu, Fulian; Egerton, Terry A.; Cooper, Ian L., Monte Carlo simulation of nano-particle sintering, POWDER TECHNOLOGY 182 (1): 42-50
• (2006) Qiu, FL; Egerton, TA; Cooper, IL,  An extended two-state model for grain growth during gas phase production of powders, JOURNAL OF THE EUROPEAN CERAMIC SOCIETY 26 (1-2): 37-47
• (2003) Qiu, FL; Fisher, AC; Walker, AB; et al., The distribution of photoinjected electrons a dye-sensitized nanocrystalline TiO2 solar cell modelled by a boundary element method, ELECTROCHEMISTRY COMMUNICATIONS 5 (8): 711-716
• (2003) Cass, MJ; Qiu, FL; Walker, AB; et al., Influence of grain morphology on electron transport in dye sensitized nanocrystalline solar cells, JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY B 107 (1): 113-119 
• (2000) Qiu, FL; Compton, RG; Coles, BA; et al., Thermal activation of electrochemical processes in a Rf-heated channel flow cell: experiment and finite element simulation, JOURNAL OF ELECTROANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY 492 (2): 150-155
• (2000) Qiu, FL; Gooch, KA; Fisher, AC; et al., Computer aided design and experimental investigation of a hydrodynamic device: The microwire electrode,  ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY 72 (15): 3480-3485
• (2000) Qiu, FL; Compton, RG; Marken, F; et al., Laser ablation voltammetry: Selective removal of reduced forms of methyl viologen deposited on glassy carbon and boron-doped diamond electrodes, ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY 72 (11) : 2362-2370
• (1999) Fulian, Qiu; Fisher, AC; Denuault, G,  Applications of the boundary element method in electrochemistry: Scanning electrochemical microscopy, part 2, JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY B 103 (21): 4393-4398

Job Title: Research Assitant

Email: james.tooze@brunel.ac.uk

Personal Webpage: http://www.jamestooze.com  

Research project title: Artefact Cafe

Project Leader: Dr Sharon Baurley

Research area:  Investigating technological, social and knowledge based factors that could enable people to design and create their own products and artefacts.

Overview of research:

Artefact Café’s primary aim is to examine the effectiveness of currently available digital tools and fabrication technologies to determine their potential for creating a mini-revolution in user-led open design. The project also looks at the facilitation process in terms of technology, knowledge, tools and resources that would enable people to successfully conceive and produce their own designs. Looking at the now widely available and accessible digital media and tools, including Web 2.0 that have increased the level of engagement consumers have in determining exactly what they are consuming. This research will allow for the imagining of ways in which products and services might be designed and consumed in the future.

This research is being conducted alongside a sister project; User Innovation Communities that is researching and developing a web based platform for the open sharing of user generated design content with the broadest reach possible, enabling the redesign of any project and the capturing of any derivation as well as allowing for commentary and feedback. In essence a social network of open innovation.

While acknowledging that people not only readily produce content for self-expression but also publicly share their views and ideas with others, there is now a new generation of “prosumers” that are pro-active in what and how they produce and/or consume information, products and services. In the context of product design, companies are now recognising the wisdom of the crowd and increasingly seeking to tap into this global knowledge base as well as local insights through crowdsourcing and/or open sourcing strategy.

The major aim of the project is to access the feasibility of creating locally focused “Artefact Cafes” that would serve as open access decentralised fabrication hubs, connected through a shared open design and knowledge platform. It is also the aim to examine the social and economic implications that these would bring about.

The research is conducted in part by running design workshops that test out how users might engage with a suite of ideation tools to design and redesign objects. They are implemented specifically to garner knowledge that can serve as the basis for content within the User Innovation Communities project and so act as a knowledge platform for the Artefact Café. For further information about the project visit http://artefactcafe.wordpress.com

Exhibitions

• Extra Ordinary Design, Inclusive design workshop, Osijek, Croatia 2012
• RCA Show, Royal College of Art, London 2011
• Work in Progress show, Royal College of Art, London 2009 / 10
• RCA Intent, Ventura Lambrate, Salone de Mobile, Milan, Italy, 2011
• Hotel RCA, Ventura Lambrate, Salone de Mobile, Milan, Italy, 2012
• Tea and Prosperity, London Design Festival, Truman Brewery, London, 2006
• Designersblock, Nicholls + Clarke Buildings, London, 2005
• Brighton Festival, Open studios, Brighton & Hove 2004 - 2008

Awards

• Finalist, LOCOG 2012 Olympic Podium Design Competition, 2011