Transparent GUIs for Bookworms

On Nov. 6, I attended IxDA & AIGA's joint day of Make-a-thon 2010 -- Touch and Beyond: New Forms of Interaction.  My favorite session was "Gestural ideation" led by Prarthana Pancal, Microsoft and Joyce Chou, T-Mobile Creation Center.  They introduced to us their Sensory Deprivation kit:

  

How would you design a mobile device if you couldn't see, if you didn't have an arm, if you couldn't hear, if you had a hook?

The cards we used in each process of the brainstorm gave us little snacks to keep the brainstorming going:

My table had so much fun; we bonded a ton; went to places we wouldn't have gone if we didn't sensory deprived ourselves.  I highly recommended using this technique for future brainstorming sessions.
Our end product was a fully decked out mobile karoake system.  Phones would be used as microphones, play the background music, used as glow lights, percussion instruments to beat the rhythm when shaking, show the lyrics...  We could soften the mics of the loud singers, auto-tune the musically talentless.  Someone ought to make this! :)

My second session was "Really Agile Design" by Brian Monzingo, Adam Kumpf, and Matt Wolfe from Teague design.  My favorite part of this session was that they had a list of words in 3 categories and randomized these words to force each table to brainstorm designs on that phrase.  A funny word that came up in the mix was designing xxx for Monkeys.

Our table's phrase was "Transparent GUIs for Bookworms."
Tables were asked to brainstorm via each person on the table having a specific function -- one had all the magazines, newspaper,..., another had the scissors, another had the glue stick and tape.  I believe the intention was to get individuals in the table to collaborate and build their ideas out from each other.  Our table didn't quite follow these rules and exchanged the tools among each other but imho were already a team from the get-go and exchanged, metamorphs-ed a lot of ideas to great concepts.

In our exaggerated personifcation of a bookworm, he was one who always had his nose stuck in the book when doing anything and everything.  So Obviously, we made the book translucent whenever desired, so a bookworm could better function in all scenarios while still being able to enjoy his favorite book.

Our bookworm could get ready in the morning and still read his book...

He could chat, lament, frustrate with other co-bookworms while reading the same book/chapter:

Bookworms could speed date with other bookworms with dating events where singles had to find other singles with the missing page/chapter of the book:

Our bookworm and his now bookworm wifey can also continue reading books even while cooking in the kitchen.  The cookbook indicates how to boil asparagus and how green it should be.  A portion of the book becomes transparent so the bookworm couple can ensure their asparagus is cooked the desired green prescribed by the cookbook:

Our concept won first prize in our session ;) woo hoo!

Adobe Illustrator Art Board

i love adobe illustrator's cs4's artboard flexibility! -- ability to create a new artboard of any size anywhere in the canvas (and that it remembers the default and other common sizes). 

Facebook Friends

sigh, life's gotten more complicated where anyone is a 'generic friend' on facebook where in reality there are practical grayness that should be there for the good and sanity of everyone. ... now how would i have designed facebook's 'friend' network...hmmm...

villa mecklin ver. nina

The simplicity of the sloped section of villa mecklin made it really fun to rethink.  How would I have done the plan differently?  Of course I'm designing for myself and what was missing in the house was a separate study -- for our household, we just have to have a room for books/work/music...

Due to the limited images from the post, I had immediately imagined high ceiling roofs on my designated north facade for the ambient north light to pour in.  (Yea to southern facing roofs -- solar PVs!)

As a typical Cornellian, I've always loved water components and using its reflection to light up the inside of the room.  The water component should be great for the various angles of sunlight throughout the year.

The steps in the middle corridor of the original design is a lovely feature too. That tends to create a nice little spatial transition between the 2 regions of the house -- private sleeping quarters vs the entertainment region.  This reminds me of the Taiwanese villa by the Great Wall -- I remember walking through the criss-crossing transition corridor and it was just breathtakingly theatrical -- the heaviness of the heavy concrete in the private side opening up to the social quarters.  It also had a lovely skylight for the shower in the middle corridor.

Note: the scale of the plan is likely not a superb estimation especially in the bedrooms. I probably need to add another row of closets to widen the bedrooms to match the width of the kitchen, dining, living and study. But hey, who wouldn't want more storage space, eh?

Since I extended the plan lengthwise, especially with my wider middle corridor, the slanted roof may no longer make sense; the roof would then slope back down on the north facade...
Perhaps there would then be room for an attic eh? :)

On the other hand, the middle corridor could still remain narrower where the facilities can each be compartmentalized.  I wonder what that would look like...

nashih.com

Last night I came across this post on Next -- Design for your Modern Home -- of Villa Mecklin.  The concept is elegant but the floor plan was just not quite right for me.  So I started sketching in my mind how if I were the client/architect, how I would've organized the floor plan/space differently.

This got me thinking that I should have a better place to document the little designs that I sketch out on OneNote, in my head, napkins,...  and what better format to document light weight thoughts than a blog?!

It would be fun to see if any of the small ideas resonate and spark any conversations; perhaps I'll get some ideas rolling so far ahead that they have potential to become larger side projects!

Meanwhile, I'm also considering using blogspot as the new platform for www.nashih.com instead of my past iterations of the portfolio in raw DHTML & PHP.

Feel free to start clicking around the Works links to the right to explore the new format listing my archive of works.

The Works pages still need a lot of work but in the meantime, let me know if you have any thoughts or suggestions!