Hasta La Ideas

After a month on the road, Dave’s finally made it to the Heartland, doubling back from the East, South and West to the Great Plains en route home to Boston. Keep up-to-date with all of the adventures on Route 77 by following @DaveSeliger on Twitter!

Day 31

Prototype BRT bus interiors by students at the Institute of Design, lead by George Aye and Martin Thaler

Just days before I arrived in Chicago, I stumbled across Greater Good Studio’s Kickstarter project to reshape public transit in the city. (This was before we featured the project here on Core77, so I like to think I got the exclusive scoop, even if it’s a week late!) George and Sara Aye, the founders of Greater Good Studio, are truly putting their money where their mouth is. “I always said I was going to do these things,” George said, referring, of course, to using design to solve society’s problems instead of a career where the project ratio is “one children’s hospital to ten frozen pizza projects.” George spent almost a decade at IDEO before leading the internal design team at the Chicago Transit Authority. Sara also “walked away from corporate innovation to social innovation,” leaving an equally successful career at IA Collaborative.

George and Sara Aye

The goal of this past year has been to build a foundation and presence for the Studio, both in terms of local clients and the larger “conversation about design and social impact.” The Ayes look to luminaries at Reboot, Project H, and IDEO.org, among others, for leadership in the field. However, this conversation about social innovation is happening almost exclusively on the East and West Coasts, with little growth in the states in between. “We would like to prove that this is worth doing,” said George. “There are ways to help people other than pro bono and traditional consulting. It’s hard—if it was easy, everyone would do it.”

Prototype BRT bus interiors by students at the Institute of Design, lead by George Aye and Martin Thaler

Being successful in the field of social innovation, though, means finding a business model that fills this void between contemporary notions of profitability and the starving NGO worker. Panthea Lee of Reboot once mentioned something similar to me about the failings of NGO’s and how to succeed in the business of saving the world by acting like a for-profit company. This is the exact approach the Ayes are taking: operate as a non-profit studio with the mentality and business acumen of a for-profit institution.

“We didn’t know if anybody would say anything or if there would be crickets,” said George Aye of the Studio’s launch. Shortly after, the Ayes received a call from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management to teach innovation to MBAs. “Suddenly we were experts,” said Sara. “If we’re saying we are, then we better be,” said George. The classroom served as a petri dish both for the students to learn new skills and for the Ayes to learn what it means to teach design. One project had the students shipped off to Africa and Asia to explore emerging markets where “the challenge is designing when there is no obvious client.” The lesson learned was one of finding innovative solutions that are sustainable and “financially sound” through some sort of “commercial value.”

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Découverte en images du plus grand bateau solaire au monde : PlanetSolar. Un catamaran fonctionnant exclusivement grâce à l’énergie contenue dans la lumière, où les parties amovibles lui permettent d’exposer au soleil un total de 537 m2 de surface photovoltaïque tout en proposant un design impressionnant.

Over the next few weeks we will be highlighting award-winning projects and ideas from this year’s Core77 Design Awards 2012! For full details on the project, jury commenting and more information about the awards program, go to Core77DesignAwards.com

Mammogram Machine used specifically for Stereotactic Breast Biopsies

With a family history of breast cancer and a recent graduate of The University of Notre Dame’s ID program, Charlotte Lux embarked on improving Stereotactic Breast Biopsies. For those without an MD this critical procedure for breast cancer is used to locate a benign or cancerous growth. As beneficial as this procedure is, it often is uncomfortable and stressful for the patient; often requiring patients to lay still for up to 60 minutes during examination. Charlotte Lux took notice of this and sought to improve it through her Core77 Design Award winning design solution.

Getting diagnosed with breast cancer can be a traumatic experience. In this research and design project, ethnographic methods were used to define opportunities for improving the delivery of care in one particularly difficult diagnostic procedure—stereotactic biopsy. These solutions work in harmony to facilitate less traumatic diagnostic experiences, enabling patients to begin the journey through breast cancer with as positive an outlook as possible.

Charlotte Lux throughly analyzed and observed the entire medical procedure. You can see her presentation here.

How did you learn that you had been recognized by the jury?

I was skimming through articles on Core77 when I saw the announcement of winners. It’s such an honor to have my project recognized!

What’s the latest news or development with your project?

As a conceptual research and design project, my hope was to add to the current movement aimed at changing the way healthcare practitioners and medical equipment manufacturers approach the delivery of care, using the stereotactic breast biopsy experience as an example. To that end, I’ve shared this work with a few breast care clinicians and a representative from a medical equipment manufacturer. Bringing these design solutions to fruition would require further product development work.

During the examination the patient is often alienated. Lux offers ways to counter this alienation and improve the system overall.

What is one quick anecdote about your project?

To immerse myself in the patient experience, I spent time in a number of hospitals over the course of a year–observing procedures, talking to patients and clinicians. Not having a medical background, I knew seeing the blood and very large needles would take some getting used to. But it was surprising how little that bothered me and how much more difficult it was seeing patients go through something as physically and emotionally trying as this cancer diagnostic procedure. The hardest thing for me was not only watching these women go through this, but the lack of closure I was able to get on each observed case. Patients received their results days after being screened and, not wanting to jeopardize privacy, I never learned of their results. Being left to wonder “whatever happened to that patient?” proved to be more emotionally draining that I had anticipated.

What was an “a-ha” moment from this project?

The biggest a-ha moment for me was the realization of how critical the patient’s role is in the biopsy procedure. Describing the process, every nurse, surgeon, and x-ray technologist talks about how important it is for patients to remain still while they isolate what is often a tiny lesion in the breast using x-ray imaging and targeting it with a needle. The patient lies on her stomach, which doesn’t sound so bad. But in observing this myself and talking with patients while they lay with one breast compressed between two plates through an opening in the hard table, I began to realize how difficult and important their job really is. Not wanting to complain, many patients tell the nurse they’re comfortable when they really aren’t. After 30, 40, and sometimes up to 60 minutes of lying completely still, it takes a toll on their ribs, neck, and back, and they fidget, which can cause tissue damage and unnecessary radiation exposure when x-rays need to be retaken. So, it became apparent that patients need to be empowered to communicate and work with clinicians so they are as comfortable as possible. This realization drove design solutions that facilitate patient control over comfort and uninterrupted interaction with clinicians.

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Perforated steel doors fold open like the wings of a butterfly at the backstreet entrance to this London house by architects Teatum+Teatum.

Named Hidden House, the residence is squeezed between two existing buildings and has a glittering facade of black render and metal filings.

The folding metal doors lead into a ground-floor living room and kitchen, where chunky chipboard walls integrate kitchen counters, shelves and a desk.

There are no windows, but a seven-metre-high lightwell brings natural light in from above.

First-floor bedrooms are positioned either side of the lightwell and also receive daylight from funnel-shaped skylights.

Other London houses we’ve featured recently include one with an oak staircase and another clad in rubber.

Photography is by Lyndon Douglas.

Here’s a project description from Teatum+Teatum:

Hidden House – T+T 001

Using the left over spaces of the city, Hidden House is formed between existing buildings.

The house makes an opportunity of its dislocation from the street. It turns its back to the city and responds to its location by creating an architecture that is internal and intimate.

The house is organised over two levels and structured around a seven metre high internal light well. Living spaces interface across the central light well, allowing bedrooms and living areas to overlap and connect.

This interface between spaces seeks the opportunity for programmes to infect one another.

The connection to the exterior is formed through high level skylights that bring daylight into the bedrooms and the central light well. By removing external views the sense of interior is reinforced, creating intimacy and a focus on light and materiality.

The rear elevation, a black shining surface, embedded with silica carbide particles acts like a mask in that it engages the viewer without expressing or revealing the space behind.

The steel butterfly doors are laser cut to reflect the pattern of rain on a cold window. Internally, the laser cut pattern allows shards of light to extend into the hidden spaces of the ground floor interior. Hidden House provides a way for the city to create more housing on existing sites providing unique spaces at low cost.

The post Hidden House by
Teatum+Teatum appeared first on Dezeen.

Dezeen Wire: design critic Alice Rawsthorn asks whether the London 2012 Olympic logo has won over the public since it’s launch in 2007 when Wolff Olins, creators of the mark, assured an outraged public that they would learn to love it – New York Times

Read more about the logo here and see all our stories about the London 2012 Olympics here.

The post “Despite changes, there’s little to love
in 2012 Olympics logo” – New York Times appeared first on Dezeen.