This course platform grooms a visionary thinker that can project future trends in products, technology, human interactions and culture. The students are trained to observe culture, emergent technology, and environmental and geopolitical trends, and to extrapolate them for future conditions. They are further equipped to envision and create future scenarios, products and services using creative thinking methods, imagination, visualisation and story- telling tools.
The works they produce are visions of the future, and are used in either creating disruptive innovation, inspiring engineering research and development directions, or as a means of debate and commentary about our social condition.
This platform enables one to become curious again about new ways to look at the world, our human condition, our relationship with objects, and the role of the visionary designer.
Understand the principles and trajectory of human and technological progression
Develop imaginative thinking pathways that can create bold, unexpected possibilties of new solutions and new scenarios
Learning to convey compelling visions of products, technology, and societal conditions, in order to engage the audience's imaginative or trigger contemplation and dialogue
Learning to observe and create abstractions of the evolution of the the world
Breaking out of the expected ideas and solution creation methods to consistently deliver fresh perspectives, bold ideas and disruptive innovation
Learning to communicate visions of the future with an extreme level of realism and an appropriate level of ambiguity
Reframing tools, paradigm shifts and scenario-creation methods built upon assumptions and projections of the future
Techniques of radical idea creation and connecting unexpected dots
Product and interface visualisations, 3D photographic renderings, visual story-boarding and story-telling methods, object form design for future contexts
The “gift of life” is a social fiction commentary on the future of the Singapore ageing society. We speculate that in year 2050, euthanasia is widely accepted, and senior citizens in Singapore will take ownership of their deaths.
Lim Zhi Ying, Lee Hanxi
Public privacy is a critical design project that speculates alternative states of privacy in light of our increasingly digital society. The design outcome consists of four artefacts that serve as communicative vehicles of inquiry. They function as talking points that seek to open up discussion and debate regarding the status quo of digital privacy today.
TPRIVACY X SELF-DEFENSE
A chic interpretation of digital self-defense, this portable anti-signal object protects users from invasive consumer surveillance and tracking.
PRIVACY X TRUST
A domesticated surveillant object explores the tension between preserving private boundaries and a necessary commitment to full disclosure. A 'relationship gift' in the form of flower functions as a sight, motion and sound monitoring device.
Thigh Gap Jewellery is a discursive design project that addresses the thigh gap trend, which pressurizes women to have a gap between their thighs. The design outcome consists of a fictional online store with near- outrageous jewellery pieces as a medium that bring a provocative jolt that leads us to reflect on the unattainable body ideals as popularized by the media.
Bae Soo Kyung
Through the action of cleaning and wiping the crematorium plaque with water, the cleansing water reveals the details of one’s beloved. One’s own gesture of taking care of the urn contributes an evident yet visceral appearing and fading of the photo and words, a tangible emotional response connecting one to their beloved.
Lee Hsiao Fong, Fabian Ong
I guess something that we are really proud of is the No Country for Old Men collection; the one that we proposed in 2012 about how elderly products in the domestic environment could be rethought. It kinda locked in a few things we are interested in, how design can really improve living. I mean more than handbags or shoes.
It was looking at where design is needed and we answered that with the sensibility we have with furniture design. And we got good results and good responses. And it has brought us to places. For example, we have done research for Herman Miller for their healthcare division. Also, right now we are working on smart bathroom accessories with an Italian company.
Yong Jieyu uses design as vernacular – initiating, creating and exploring narratives in daily life. Believing in the cumulative cultural experience of designed artefacts, products and services, his engagements have span industrial design, object editions, communication and interaction design.
In 2009, together with Hans Tan, Edwin Low, Donn Koh and Lee Tze Ming, he co-founded STUCK – a multi-faceted design consultancy. His interest in education and design pedagogy has led him to be invited for numerous workshops, lectures and external critiques by various institutions. He currently directs projects at STUCK and is an invited tutor in the Division of Industrial Design (National University of Singapore) and the Nayang Academy of Fine Arts
As part of our strategy to evolve constantly, a major component of the course is the Course Platforms.
It allows students to tailor their individual course of learning by selecting and participating in 2 concurrent design studios from a variety of 7 to 10 different design projects offered every semester —ranging from
The range of different topics reflect the ever-expanding role of an innovator and industrial designer; not only are students able to receive exposure to different areas of innovation, they also get the opportunity to learn different approaches to designing from the individual studio leaders and industry collaborators.
In addition, the vertical format of the design platforms encourages cross-learning of ideas, skills and methods while junior students work alongside and / or compete with senior students.
Students in a lower year will take up the role of a junior designer, whilst senior students will have the opportunity to assume the role of a senior innovator. This arrangement reflects the prevalent importance of group dynamics in industry practice, where design teams often comprise of junior designers, innovators and sometimes a creative director.
The platform program features real life innovation projects in collaboration with the following industry partner:
B.A.(ID)
The Bachelor of Arts in Industrial Design, B.A.(ID), is an undergraduate honours programme consisting of coursework driven by a synergistic three-pronged approach:
Design Thinking: Out-of-the-box innovation strategies and investigative methods to discover new ideas and unmet needs.
Multi-Disciplinary Aptitudes: Behavioural science, social economics, business strategy and engineering and technology knowledge help out graduates develop entrepreneurial strategic thinking and holistic problem-solving capabilities.
Artistic Sensibility: Training of imagination, taste, and crafts, to provide appropriate aesthetics and emotions to ideas so that solutions are both functional and desirable. The combined approaches equips our graduates with high-level strategic thinking, and enables them to translate problems and ideas to tangible, desirable solutions etc.
To broaden the students’ exposure, around two-thirds of each cohort goes for a one-semester overseas exchange programme during their 3rd year to distinguished design schools.
Our partner schools include:
University of New South Wales, Australia
University of Alberta, Canada
Duoc UC, Chile
Tsinghua University, China
Zhejiang University, China
Tongji University, China
Aalto University, Finland
ENSCI, France
ENSAD, France
International School of Design or ISD, France
Institut supérieur de design, France
Folkwang University of the Arts, Germany
Politechnico di Milano, Italy
Kyushu University, Japan
KIT, Japan
Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico
TU Delft, The Netherlands
TU Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Hangyang University, South Korea
Seoul National University, South Korea
KAIST, South Korea
ECAL, Switzerland
National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan
University of Leeds, United Kingdom
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
Georgia Institute of Technology, USA
Arizona State University, USA
Crafting User Experiences in Retail & Government Services is a specialization platform electable by students of the Division of Industrial Design (DID).
DID was founded in 1999 as Singapore’s first university-level course in Industrial Design. DID offers a highly selective degree course in Industrial Design. We teach a potent combination of design thinking and innovation methods, with a clever mix of artistic, humanistic, technological and business disciplines.
Our vision is to make life better through design; to equip students with trans-disciplinary skills and thinking processes required to find unmet needs, to solve complex problems involved in creating viable new products, experiences, interfaces and environments. Our graduates are enabled to take up highly valuable and versatile roles as creative designers, innovators, entrepreneurs, and leaders of change.
Originally as part of the Department of Architecture, our programme has built a stellar track record and gained independence in just 11 years. We are ranked among the world’s top 30 University for the subject of Art and Design by QS World University Rankings by Subject 2016, and also ranked as the top university in Asia.
