Welcome
Omar Al-ouf | S132651 | B2.1(R1)
LightChallenge
The objective of the LightChallenge project, as part of a national competition, is to develop an innovative yet feasible lighting solution for an urban environment with an emphasis on improving quality of life, interactivity and sustainable use of materials & energy. We were assigned to the city of Bergen op Zoom, specifically an alley that links between the primary parking garage and city center. Our key challenges included, poor navigation, a perception of insecurity and an inaccurate first impression.
Bastion takes these elements into account to realize a sensational public street lighting experience. A vital component of this design is what we call the “two-faced” solution. The purpose of this component is to express two distinct lighting scenarios in the opposing directions. This allows us to not only provide pedestrians with a wholesome and indulging experience along the course of a round trip, but also addresses the navigation concern in an intuitive manner as a glimpse ahead is all that is required. Walking the direction of the city, the light is perceived as enticing, engaging and invigorating in contrast to the appeasing and gratifying light ahead of the parking garage.
The second component of our design cleverly applies light shutters to the two-faced facades to confound a dynamic dimension where regardless of position, one perceives a gradual increase in brightness ahead. This effect, not only eliminates the use of sensors, rendering a more durable product, but yields a more intimate and subjective experience as it is the act of walking that is being highlighted as the dynamic aspect of the system and as a result building up anticipation to explore ahead.
The third and final component lies in the physical appearance of the armature as it resembles the historic city walls by use of a sustainable copper structure. This form, especially apparent during daytime, will mainly serve as a testament to the inherent safety of Bergen op Zoom.
Still, Bastions most remarkable feature is its ability to initiate, amplify and convey distinct bidirectional emotions, sentiments and demeanors.
Reflection
I chose this project as I was interested in designing for an experience rather than a product. I believed this, in combination with the real-world implications of our concept, would help me further develop my vision on interpretive, sensory and emotional design. This decision proved to be very successful as I not only was able to apply but validate this vision.
I acted as the visionary leader of this project and maintained a holistic overview over our design process. In undertaking this role, I facilitated and directed the establishment of our mission statement, and later, the conception of our vision. This foundation garnered positive feedback from our coaches and stakeholders, and consequently provided a clear direction for the conceptualization phase.
In this next phase, I focused on how to best translate our vision into a concept. I generated multiple ideas for our concept, the most prominent one being the use of dichroic material to reflect and stimulate the pedestrian’s emotional state based on whether they were heading towards the city or parking garage. This concept seemed ideal for many reasons. The first reason is that color was an effective way of stimulating emotions. The second reason is that it provided a bidirectional experience. The third reason is that it would also address the navigational problem. As it was realized this material had its limitations and could not be properly implemented, these same 3 elements were used to form the final simplified concept, the two-faced solution. Although I preferred the use of dichroic material, I was very happy with the alternative concept as it perfectly manifests our vision.
The third major role I played was designing and developing the light scenarios for both the intermediate and final models. It was very important for me to have the light scenarios reflect the depth of our vision and truly convey the emotions we were seeking. For this I was also heavily involved in the user testing of the intermediate model, and the physical appearance of the lighting scenario in the final prototype. I am very proud of our final model as I feel I was successfully able attain the desired qualities my role assumed. I believe we will deliver a fierce competition for the LightChallenge award, especially with further refinements to the concept in the weeks to come.
Intercultural Awareness
As a third-culture kid, culture is not something I ever felt truly a part of. I was aware of these separate cultures, but the difference between them is all I could relate with. For this reason, taking this assignment was a way for me to better understand my own intertwined cultural stance and learn how I can use this position to design objectively.
I think this assignment led me to the most startling realization yet. At first, I thought to design objectively meant to design across cultures rather than for a culture, this means to understand the different cultures and design with all of them in mind. This turned out to be the wrong approach as culture is not a reflection of the people, rather the people were a representation of a culture. This means you should not design for or across cultures, but for the human conscious eager to channel its expression. During the first half of this assignment, I read the book written by Hofstede called “Cultures and Organizations: Software of the mind”. Although this was a challenging read, the format of this course encouraged students to act simultaneously as learners and instructors. This allowed for a much richer understanding to develop where we felt we were exploring the content rather than absorbing it.
For our presentation, we discussed the fifth dimension of Hofstede’s book, long-term orientation. As this dimension was the most challenging, we chose a creative format for our presentation where each of the four of us acted as a character in a television talk show. Two of us would act as the interviewees’ representing opposing cultures, one with a short-term orientation, the other with a long-term orientation. The third team member would act as the interviewer while the fourth would help connect the theory. This received very positive feedback from both, the assignor and students with some remarking it helped understand the theory.
The second part of the assignment focused on applying the theory by interviewing an expat and presenting it in the form of a video. This part did not go as well as we did not present it in the same entertaining fashion, and failed to substantiate it with theory. This was mostly my fault as I took the role of editing the movie. This was my first ever attempt at animation and as such I put a great deal of effort into the aesthetics and animations of the movie. I opted to use simplistic and clean animations to relate it with the theory, unfortunately that was the wrong choice, but since then I have learned to prioritize content. Nevertheless, I developed my editing and animations skills exponentially.
Although I received very positive feedback about my reflection, I was very late indeed. The main reason is that both deadlines for the video and reflection were on the same date. I worked days on end to complete the video but as I had no prior experience, it took much longer than it should have. I did not want to disappoint my team members and so instead allocated the time I had available to complete the video. Another reason is that I found it very difficult to form a cohesive conclusion as to what the implications of what I’ve learned were. I sometimes struggle to write reflections as I get stuck trying to connect a common insight.
Look!
I took this assignment as I had little experience with designing physical forms. I always found this idea to be daunting as I had no clear direction to follow, and always assumed it stemmed from a matter of taste, which I was unconvinced by.
This course cleared up a lot for me in terms of the process to designing a deliberate and comprehensive experience. I learned of the different qualities forms can exhibit and the different means they can manifest. But before I learned that, I was taught how to actually choose the appropriate quality. I was always aware of how much attention goes to the designs of everyday things all around us, but this new dimension further stunned me by how subliminal these effects can actually be.
Art was always my weakest skill, and is the reason I always felt insecure about my ability to sketch. This assignment pushed me to practice, not only in sketching but all kinds of form-giving. I found it very difficult to start at first, as I was always uncertain of my first line, figure and decision. But I learned that patience is principal. It didn’t matter what the result was, what mattered is the next step, refinement. After some practice, I was really happy with my new ability. I assumed a new perspective, and was capable of scrutinizing my ideas for newer ideas.
I’ve instinctively used moodboards to showcase a vision beforehand, but I found it a challenge to implement in the design process. I’ve since realized it’s due to the choice of images. Through the different student moodboards, and feedback on my personal moodboard I learned to substitute the use of explicit images with more abstract depictions conveying a quality’s essence and context. I’ve learned that feelings and sensations, rather than ideas is what translates to a concept. I’ve become confident and accustomed to the dealing with all sorts of materials and techniques to better realize a design. Among them include explorations in scrap tinkering, silicon molding, plastic modeling.
In conclusion, I am very pleased with the insights and skills I’ve acquired. This was a very demanding assignment and as a consequence, led to appreciable results. This was also the first time I’ve partnered with a master’s student whose quality of work and experience I found very inspiring.
Technology Entrepreneurship USE line
This semester I followed the third and final course for the USE line of Technology Entrepreneurship, Organizing Entrepreneurship. The purpose of this course was to apply the previous knowledge we gained to develop a comprehensive business concept for our own technological entrepreneurial idea.
I successfully completed the first two courses, but found this final course to be very challenging. Being overly ambitious, our idea implemented IBM’s Chef Watson technology, currently still in beta mode, to suggest novel recipes based on what ingredients you have available home. At first, we wished to build a smart fridge capable of detecting contained food items and relaying it to our app, and thus Chef Watson. Soon thereafter, we realized we were simply incapable of building such a fridge as we did not possess the necessary knowledge over the technology to be able to make an accurate cost calculation. Instead we focused solely on the app, and added an innovative feature that circumvents the need for a smart fridge to allow users to track what ingredients they have available. This feature uses the phone’s camera to scan food items’ barcodes and associate it with the correct product based on an open product database. We also added a new social dimension to our app to allow users to rate and share novel tasty recipes discovered using Chef Watson. This modification allowed for a much more realistic business plan and strategy.
In this course I learned how to assess the technical feasibility of a concept by researching the current technologies maturity level and the yielded benefits it would add for customers. I also learned to take into account the unique selling point of our concept and the existing benefits the competition’s technology offers. I realized the importance of analyzing the products production development process and the required components and knowledge needed to assemble it. I considered the benefits of outsourcing our product versus developing it ourselves. And finally I practiced estimating the accumulative cost price of realizing a product, taking into account facility costs, component costs and labor costs.
Next I learned to asses our situational analysis by applying an internal and external SWOT analysis to investigate our strengths and weaknesses in combination with anticipated opportunities and threats. I also learned to identify our opportunities and threats at a macro level using a PESTEL analysis which took into account social forces and legal forces among others. Finally I applied the Porter’s 5 forces model to better understand our industry’s cycle, which included bargaining power of buyers and threat of substitute products. Finally I learned to apply the confrontation matrix to understand how strengths/weaknesses and opportunities/threats relate with one another and how we can influence these dynamics to our benefit.
In the final report, we combined these elements to segment our market, define our target customers and position our product in the market. We then were able to estimate revenues over the next five years and make a go or no go decision.
Social Psychology and Consumer Behavior
Since my last assessment, I have participated in an elective in the Human-Technology interaction section of the department of Innovation sciences. The reason I did so is that I was very interested in another offered USE learning line, The Human in Technology. I felt this was knowledge relevant to all designers and so chose to take a closely related elective. I was especially interested in the psychology and sociology in the context of merchandise. This would provide me with the theoretical knowledge to understand the underlying reasons behind consumer’s decisions. I am then able to apply this knowledge to my design and business process.
A few applicable topics include Social Cognition, which states that motivation and ability are the main factors that push us to seek accuracy and social approval. In the context of design, this means a stimulating and enabling design increases peoples motivation and productivity which in effect translates to a more consistent and accepting society. Another phenomenon which I have observed before but found very discomforting when presented with facts is our need to conform to the others surrounding us. Regardless of the situation, we observe each other’s behavior before we decide what action should be. This means that in a situation where someone is hurt in an area with a high number of bystanders, he is actually less likely to receive help. This idea can be further extended to merchandise where users conform to each other’s shopping choices.
Another important theory I learned is the wheel of consumer analysis. This is a framework that helps us understand and influence consumer decision making. It is composed of three main components. Affect & cognition, which refers to the consumer’s feelings and knowledge associated with stimuli and events. Consumer behavior, which refers to the consumer’s action as observed others. Consumer environment, which refers to external stimuli and events the consumer experiences. Finally the marketing strategy, the stimuli that will placed in a consumer’s environment to influence their feelings, thinking process and most importantly behavior. This a great tool to systematically analyze the influences your design or product has on your user. When applied to the LightChallenge, it conveniently states our mission in one sentence. We are influencing the consumer’s environment by use of street lighting to affect their feelings and subsequently attract them to the city-center.
I’ve learned numerous other theories and found this course to be very interesting, especially as it presented the researchers supportive findings for each theory. In addition to those, I garnered a new set of vocabulary to describe psychological and sociological effects.
This course benefited me greatly in developing the competencies Social Cultural Awareness, User Focus and Perspective, Design and Research Process and Designing Business Process.
I will link a video presentation I did during one of the assignments in this course.
Self-directed and Continuous Learning
As I deregistered from the assessment of my last semester of B2.1 early on, I provided an extensive reflection regarding my pitfalls and took it upon myself to reflect on my current competency development at the start of this semester in my PDP (link). To get back on track, I wisely chose to participate in a group project and chose this project to be the LightChallenge as I knew a competitive atmosphere would motivate me to work hard and stay focused on my development. This strategy proved to be successful as I was heavily involved and active in all my projects, assignments and basic courses. This shows I am aware of my weaknesses and capable of directing my learning process to temporarily alleviate those weakness as I further develop them without making them a liability to my success.
This semester was a very challenging yet fruitful one. I had to retake two basic courses, USE and physics while maintaining the regular schedule of two assignments, the USE learning line during both quartiles and finally a particularly challenging project. I had to work very hard to just satisfy each component, but so far I’ve managed to stay in control and on top of these components with two successful results, physics with a final exam grade of 9 (a major concern as I would have been delayed a year had I failed) and USE line with a final grade of 8. My assignments also proved to be a success with high quality deliverables and great feedback.
This competency was also very well addressed in terms of my vision and Identity. I was able to further develop my vision and identity by implementing them in my main project, the LightChallenge. Although I feel I might have mingled the distinction between vision and identity, I am fully aware of what they jointly contain and is the reason I instinctively employed them in the realization of our concept. Only at the latter stages did I notice the clear relationship they both had, and is in my mind, a true testament to the ingrained nature between me and my identity & vision as a designer. To make the relations between my vision & identity and project clear, I will identify them. The first relation is that our concept, in statistic and objective form, is capable of conveying a subjective experience based on the user’s aspirations (to visit the city or return back home). This is exactly what I wanted to explore in my vision & identity, I wished for design to be objective, not subjective to the designers or any specific users; at the same time, I want my designs to have a universal impact on people, meaning I want people to be able to interpret them and assign their own character and emotions into them. This can only be achieved when the design is objective and capable of absorbing everyone’s attributions. The second relation which happens to converge with the third, is the view that it should be regarded as a natural extension of who we are and thus allow for an instinctive interaction to occur. Our concept instinctively communicates to the user which direction they are heading in (to the city versus back to the garage) by use of lighting atmosphere to stimulate a heightened emotional state; the third relation. All three relations, objective/interpretive design, instinctive interaction and emotional design form a coherent relationship.
With that said, I recognize that this still remains to be my weakest competency. I am capable of directing my learning, but I still struggle to stay organized and follow planning. This is especially true during communications with my coach. I did not keep her up to date as I planned, but did seek her feedback and achieved the majority of my PDP goals.
I did use and strictly follow a google calendar schedule for the entirety of my semester, but I did not take initiative in adding scheduled meetings as Eva de Bruijn assumed that role. I did document all my work in one place, but I used dropbox and google drive as it turned out to be a better solution when working with groups. I did significantly develop my vision, but it turned out to be mostly from the perspective of our project rather than personal project. I also used my coaches feedback who guided me to read “Emotional design: why we love (or hate) everyday things”. I did obtain feedback from my coach every few weeks, but it was about how to better guide my progress rather than my reflection ability. I did read 2 books but one was part of the intercultural awareness assignment rather than a personal one. I did get follow courses through the Rosetta stone app, but I did not follow through with it as it proved to be very intensive, instead it triggered my interest in the Dutch language and I began to learn from my teammates about the different translations in the context of our project. I did apply to the Taiwan trip and was selected to go. I did significantly develop my adobe software skills through the intercultural awareness assignment and project. Finally I passed both the physics and USE course successfully. All the rest I followed through fully with the exception of building a mini prototype during the RSDL week, the reason was that my physics exam occurred during this time period and I prioritized it over the mini project as it had severe consequences. I still was able to develop my vision through the use of my project which in hindsight was the better option.
I now realize that many of the goals I had set for development of this competency were too unrealistic and precise to ever be followed through accurately. They were also too numerous which affected me negatively as I was always worried about satisfying each and every detail instead of focusing on the real world implications such goals. This was an attempt to form smart goals but were in fact distorting. In my next PDP I will avoid such meticulous goals and replicate the goals I have set for other competencies as they proved very effective.
Conditions
Although I already addressed my condition in the PDP, I wish to demonstrate how I’ve satisfied them during the course of this semester.
“In your next showcase make sure to add a lot more evidence. You need evidence for the things you claim, definitely use all the feedback that you have.”
I’ve gathered extensive evidence for the development I claim through video footage, pictures and feedback.
“Use the right forms for getting feedback.”
I made certain of using the correct feedback form, by asking the assignors to decline my request if the wrong formed is used. This actually did occur again, and so I’m very happy I took their advice.
Teamwork and Communication
I believe I made significant progress in this competency as the LightChallenge project required an exceptionally united and consistent team effort. The sheer number of meetings and deliverables meant that we all became very acquainted with one another and aware of each other’s strengths and weakness. Everyone knew his role in the team, and as such, we were able to trust and rely on each other to deliver.
In addition, the large network of stakeholders and coaches meant we were functioning as part of a bigger team. This network of stakeholders was not all initially assigned to us as we took the initiative to expand further and contact the appropriate experts concerning our challenges. Even with the initially assigned stakeholders, we developed remarkably close ties, prompting the municipality of Bergen op Zoom to willingly fund our final two models.
I am also very happy with the way I handled communication in this project. I’ve always had very strong opinions about ideas I was convinced by and would be very critical and unsupportive of alternative ideas if I was unconvinced. This sometimes led to a competitive diversion in previous groups which of course undermines the team effort. I can say that this was almost completely avoided in this project as I developed the ability to argue for or against ideas objectively. This led my team to trust in my ability to assess decisions and thus earned me the role as the visionary leader within our concept. This was a significant improvement over previous semesters although my coach argues I can further improve this by learning to adopt different perspectives, which I of course am not only willing but excited to try.
Finally I overcame a major obstacle I was first faced with when I learned that the material and communication behind this project would be conducted in Dutch. I am very grateful for the cooperation of my team members as they made me almost completely oblivious to it during the course of the project.
Ideas and Concepts
I am always keen on developing this competency as I find it to be the most gratifying, at least in the instant. Of course the LightChallenge contributed the most to the development of this competency, but the Look! assignment allowed for a controlled yet creative exploration to develop. In the LightChallenge, as a visionary leader, I placed on emphasis on recognizing the true essence of the problem. I knew that if I were able to identify the real problem, our solution alone would be perceived as innovative. Next, I used this mission statement to conceive a powerful vision that would ultimately guide us through the design process. This vision did not consider the lighting scenario into account whatsoever, instead it focused on breaking down the dynamic experience that currently occurs in that street. This allowed us to reach a solution in a very creative yet relevant manner as we did not limit ourselves to the physical thought of a lighting fixture or scenario, this allowed us to rethink traditional lightings purpose and function in context. I always had a gut feeling that this was the correct approach, but I had never implemented it. This project was a perfectly executed example of this format, as our final concept was a complete embodiment of our vision. The look! assignment on the other hand vigorously pushed me to rethink fundamental designs such as utensils. This meant you had to adopt a new perspective as there were no predefined problems people had with utensils. This was a clearly different approach as you were encouraged to first find inspirations and explore with new forms and materials to find a convincing argument for your design choice. Exploration was at the forefront while reason followed. This exercise was meant to teach you to develop convincing arguments for a preset choice.
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Integrating Technology
It was not my intention to address this competency this semester but it is sort of impossible to avoid the use of technology. My main development here was through the use of numerous adobe software throughout the semester. The most prominent development was that I taught myself to use adobe premiere and after effects to edit the video for the intercultural awareness assignment. This was a very demanding job and although the content could have better used the perspective of other team members I feel I did an amazing job in terms of the editing and animations. I also made extensive use of photo shop and illustrator throughout this semester to communicate my ideas and concepts. Finally I refreshed and improved my understanding of Arduino by programming the light scenarios for the final concepts.
User Focus and Perspective
I’ve made significant progress in this competency through multiple components, the LightChallenge project, RSDL week and elective.
The LightChallenge project focused on designing a public lighting instillation meaning that society at large was our target audience. This was a whole new scope as you could no longer segment your group, however we did focus specifically on tourists and local residents. For our concept and vision we considered the users’ perspective throughout a round trip to Bergen op Zoom and came to the realization of how different these users feel when they are going towards the city versus when they are returning back to the parking garage. This is a principal insight we learned and applied to our concept. I learned how to really project myself in the user’s position to be able to notice what they were feeling and thinking during an experience. This then made me realize what it is they were missing in their experience. Another way where this competency was developed is by including and taking into account the many different stakeholders perspectives and feedback.
Secondly I did develop this competency using the RSDL week by further understanding how products evoke personal meaning to different people by correctly satisfying their visceral and personal cognitive model. They start to appreciate a product and develop a connection with it based on the consistent reliability it afforded them. They are able to identify with a product based on the shared and similar effect it had on other people they associate a strong relationship with. This means that the people collectively form and assign meaning and characteristic to a product in group identities.
Form and Senses
To develop this competency, I participated in the Look! assignment and focused on the lighting scenario during the LightChallenge project. In the look! assignment I experimented with a range of different materials and techniques to evoke desired qualities in many prototype iterations. During the first iteration I explored numerous creative forms of utensils using scrap materials. This garnered positive feedback from my coach and class as they observed I was pushing the boundary to discover new methods and forms we can enhance the eating experience. One prominent one was the use of a sponge to drink soup by dipping it in and biting on it to produce a more immersive sensory experience. In the next stage, I chose a few prototypes to develop further by exploring the use of amateur silicon molding. This method required a lot of work and experimentation, but I chose it to become more acquainted with form giving skills while producing interesting prototypes. One interesting looking spoon form I made was inspired by the shape of an electric guitar. I later was able to see an application of this shape to help users slow down eating habits by having the sharp outline hook to your mouth as you practiced eating motions. Finally, the final model I made used a new innovative material called Multimorph, a moldable plastic when placed in warm water. This provided me with the opportunity to from a polished and professional prototype while at the same time allowing me the freedom to realize the complex shape I had in mind. In this assignment, I also developed my sketching skills which were initially non-existent.
In the LightChallenge project, I designed the aesthetics and interaction of the lighting scenarios. I had a clear yet complex goal for what I wanted each scenario to communicate and worked meticulously to refine them. The dynamic and holistic aspect of these lighting scenarios also introduced an additional complexity to the task. I was not designing an individual light scenario but comprehensive experience where there had to be a fluidity and relationship between the opposing scenarios. Finally although I was also heavily involved into the dimming effect the shutters produced as I considered them to be an important part of the experience.
Designing Business Processes
Since the last assessment, I have completed 3 courses in the Technology Entrepreneurship USE line. This means I have made substantial development concerning this competency. The reason I took this course is that I plan to start a company while in I am studying at TU/e. Since taking this course I learned how to identify and create new business opportunities. I also learned how to actually design and pursue those business opportunities. I am now fully aware of what it means to be an entrepreneur and feel well prepared to transform my ideas into viable business strategies for the real world. I plan on following an elective to this line so I can obtain a certificate of technology entrepreneurship.
As my project was based on real setting with a network of stakeholders, I gained firsthand experience communicating and working with real stakeholders and investors. I also gained a better understanding of the Dutch business environment and applied the knowledge I gained from the USE learning line to creating a feasible concept to be implemented in the real world. Other knowledge I applied included making a viable business strategy for the implementation of our concept in Bergen op Zoom. Currently I am also considering pursuing this business strategy by formally presenting it to our stakeholder as a possible business endeavor.
Design and Research Processes
I’ve mainly developed this concept through my role in the LightChallenge project as the visionary leader. This role meant I was responsible for continuously directing our design process to align with our vision and mission statement. My teammates also frequently sought my opinion on the major design decisions to be made. As this was a real world project, research took different meaning here, as we instead learned from and integrated the different knowledge our stakeholders acquired through experience by visiting their factories, offices and seminars. I also played an important role in the preparation and execution of the user test research. I partook in an extensive exploration of the different materials to be used, especially the dichroic where I contacted 3M for a free sample. Finally I applied an iterative design process in our project where we would improve our design through feedback from coaches and stakeholders.
Descriptive and Mathematical Modeling
I developed this competency mainly by translating the complex and descriptive emotions we wished to convey in our lighting scenarios to a mathematical model and program to be implemented in the Neopixel LED strips using Arduino. This was a very difficult task that took many iterations to get right through numerous user tests and feedback sessions with our stakeholders. Finally played an important role in the writing of the descriptive reports and presentations we delivered in this project. I can also relate the construction of our business plan to this task as we were translating this concept to be a viable business model. Finally I will also be making the final visual animation and render of our concept for the final LightChallenge presentation. .
Social Cultural Awareness
The assignment on Intercultural Awareness provided the most input for the development of this competency. Reading the book by Geert Hofstede, I learned of the six cultural dimensions and what they apply to the different cultures. I now understand the reasons behind people’s different choices of action depending on culture, whereas beforehand I was only aware of the differences. An example of a cultural difference I never quiet understood but now I’m able to by applying the theory I learned is that in many African countries, water is stored in sachets while peanuts are in bottles. This seemed absurd to me but it showcases how the African culture necessitates different priorities due to extreme poverty. Water sachets are priced much cheaper than bottles due to minimal material and storage costs while peanuts are stored in recycled glass bottles. This can be linked to Hofstede’s short-term dimension as Africans are concerned with the day-to-day struggle. Another indirect reason for such storage methods is that Africans perceive sachet water to be more pure as it is fully sealed whereas peanuts are protected by a thin layer of coating. This can also be linked to Africa’s uncertainty avoidance index as they place on emphasis on security.
Another example which is applicable to the LightChallenge project is the Netherlands’ low rating on the uncertainty avoidance index. According to Hofstede the Netherlands’ low ranking indicates individuals are suppressing their emotions, which leads to a higher risk of coronary heart disease. Expressing emotions is a natural process for our bodies to relieve stress. Bastion is thus a great addition to the Dutch society as it encourages people to embrace their emotions.
I also developed this competency through the LightChallenge project as I was designing for a real world problem with the community and tourists in mind. This meant I had to take into account the implications of our light scenario seriously by researching the psychology of light on society. I also learned to recognize and include the community’s identity and heritage in my design.
