3132 research outputs found
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Integrating Mindfulness: Enhancing Art and Design Student Well-being through AI Voice Assistants and Wearable Technology
Get PDFRecognizing the specific constraints of their academic and creative work, this study focuses on how an AI-enhanced application may provide personalized support for mindfulness and well-being for art and design students. Using Research through Design and Research for Design approaches, it develops a user-centric application that allows for accessible and tailored mindfulness exercises via voice interactions. The project's scope was primarily focused on integrating voice assistant technology to determine its usefulness in engaging students in mindfulness activities. This study seeks to provide light on innovative approaches to improving well-being and creativity among students in creative fields by evaluating the app's usability and impact on facilitating mindfulness
Towards Mixed Reality Architecture: Context-Specific Design Approach for Mixed Reality Environments
Get PDFThe more we dwell in cyberspace through our digital devices, the more disconnected we are becoming
from the real world, entering a future where people’s prolonged inhabitation within virtual environments
could potentially turn major functional aspects of the built environment and its architecture obsolete.
Our homes, offices, and other places in our cities will have to compete with virtual replacements for
people’s time, money, and value. Extended reality technologies can be used to design and build
cybernetic architecture to prepare for such a future. So far, architects and designers have done little
exploration of this emerging practice.
This research seeks an expanded role of the built environment inside mixed reality experiences,
proposing a Context-Specific Design approach to mixed reality development that is designed for and with
the architecture in which it is situated. The proposed approach allows for a thoughtful and tailored
inclusion of spatial elements such as floor, ceiling, walls, furniture, and objects, posing as an alternative
to the commonly adopted modular design approach to mixed reality environments, which disregards the
qualities of the place and its architecture.
The thesis follows Research through Design and Speculative Design as methodologies for producing a
series of prototypes and a functional mock-up of a retail space made as a mixed reality environment.
Some design concepts, methods, techniques, and learnings emerge as core research findings.
This research furthers the discussion on the use of extended reality in architecture by proposing a new
use case for mixed reality. It also contributes to the emerging practices of cybernetic architecture and
media architecture.
Keywords: Mixed Reality, Architecture, Spatial Design, Cybernetic Architecture, Media Architecture,
Interactivity, User Experience Design, Phygita
Connect to Care
Get PDFConnect to Care is a curatorial project that explores through art-making how ethical care can be practiced about, with and for Asian newcomers in an attentive, bottom-up and reciprocal manner.
Collaborating with two newcomer-focused, Asian-founded art collectives – The Department of Imaginary Affairs and Waard Ward (in collaboration with artist Nicolas Fleming and artist Darren Rigo) – alongside Asian newcomer collaborators from the community, the exhibition presents their collective works of floristry and story-telling. These works invite reimagination of how newcomers can (re)establish their relationships with the society that they are resettling in, and how communities can connect and manifest ethical newcomer care through a proposed three-principle framework inspired by feminist scholars: (1) Caring about – attentive to newcomers’ voices and needs, (2) Caring with – bottom-up approach and, (3) Caring for – (re)building of reciprocal kinships and connections.
As newcomers and immigrants continue to make up a significant share of the Canadian population, this project hopes to enrich and fill the gaps of existing newcomer care and support. It also envisions to expand the scope of care ethics scholarship in relations to the subject of newcomers and/or immigrants, as well as curatorial and artistic practice
Collaborating with the Invisible Creek: Water, Vines and Willows
Get PDFTkaronto/Toronto is built on top of the paths of multiple buried waterways. Despite their burial, these waterways have an ongoing liveliness and continue to express agency and intention through relation and interconnection with other beings. This thesis is a collaboration with one of Tkaronto/Toronto’s most hidden waterways, Russell Creek, or as I call it, the invisible creek. Using critical frameworks of cripistemology, disability as a site of knowledge, posthumanism, and methodologies of walking and visiting, I probe at the question of how exactly does one collaborate with an other-than-human being? In a process of research-creation, the push and pull of shared ideas, interconnections and entanglements of relation are explored through pigment making and experimental printmaking. This work challenges notions of self-reliant individualism and asks what other worlds are made possible when our attunement is shifted to the extensive networks of care at the edges of our perception
Futures of Queer Space in Toronto
Get PDFMany spaces for queer people in Toronto have closed. Others have evolved or emerged to serve a changing community and new customers with different needs, desires and expectations. The future of these spaces in Toronto is uncertain largely due to increasing rents, the dispersion and acceptance of queer people, and how we increasingly leverage technology as a replacement for physical contact and connection. Existing relevant research mainly focuses on the historical significance of queer spaces, reasons for queer space disappearance and the current landscape of fixed, temporary and digital space. This research study builds on existing research to explore how queer spaces in Toronto may evolve in the future. Leveraging insights from semi-structured interviews with local queer space creators, experts and community builders as well as foresight methods, the research examines the role and attributes of queer space in four divergent Toronto scenarios based in 2043. Research outcomes indicate that queer spaces will continue to play an important role in the lives of queer people in the future, and that spaces with connecting, teaching, transportive, inclusive, intersectional and accessible attributes are most relevant in the futures explored. These attributes define spaces that are inclusive to all and used for community-building and connection, for sharing stories, history and celebrating progress, and for escaping to utopian worlds. And while this study highlights key weaknesses and threats to Toronto’s queer spaces, the outcomes also reveal potential for positive change and reasons to have hope. Preliminary recommendations and strategies for preserving, adapting and creating queer spaces are prioritized for greatest impact and show that queer collaboration and collective engagement have the greatest power and potential for manifesting a future of Toronto where queer people have the spaces they need to thrive
Classrooms for Resilience
Get PDFThis research project intends to explore the resilience in Ontario college and university students, and how the system of higher education may contribute to developing resilience. Resilience is the dynamic process of effectively managing and adapting to sources of stress, and can be developed at any point in life. Resilience can be a key factor for graduates to successfully navigate major changes in the world, especially in terms of working environments, economy, climate crises, and social polarity. While both colleges and universities aim their focus on enrolment targets and employability and skills-based outcomes, they are in some cases missing an opportunity to actively contribute to the resilience of students. Through primary research, this exploration will gather information with participants on how the higher education system can promote resilience in students using foresight tools such as causal layered analysis and 2x2 matrix. Following the Systemic Design Toolkit framework of problem framing, analyzing, synthesizing, and solving, this project will propose strategies to intervene in the system and promote resilience in graduates
Birth of a Goddess: Reclaiming the ‘Shakti’ (Divine Feminine Power)
Get PDFIn my thesis project, I envision creating a space where one can experience the true ‘Shakti’ of the eternal Goddess i.e., the energy/force responsible for the entire creation, and rediscover this ‘Shakti’ within. I attempt to change the narrative around South Asian women through performance and storytelling. Creating a speculative story set in history I reimagine the present and future, as our past is not dead but lives through us constantly. This work challenges the patriarchal norms that still exist in South Asian communities across the globe and discusses the problematic approach to decolonizing by these communities
Building Resilience by Understanding Reasons for Collapse: A Study of Societal Futures
Get PDFThe primary area of investigation is resilience and its shadow counterpart societal collapse. Our research explores what resilience to existential risks means for contemporary Canadian society. We analyzed historical examples of societal collapse for clues and common factors that led to their demise. We will also explore concepts and frameworks for resilience and alternate worldviews for insights into how to build resilience.
Borderless global threats like climate change pose an existential risk to all of humanity, but in varying degrees of severity around the world. For example, climate change poses long term implications globally, but some regions are already more heavily affected and face more severe consequences in the near future. We used foresight tools such as scenarios research to understand the interconnectedness of key trends as they relate to existential risks and their implications for Canada. We also collected and analyzed data from expert and non-expert interviews to understand risk perception, crisis experience, and future risk response.
An opportunity exists to decolonize our response to existential risks by incorporating alternate perspectives, worldviews, and cultural values into a framework for resiliency in a contemporary Canadian setting. For example, many Indigenous perspectives inherently incorporate non-human factors by providing an eco-centric rather than anthropocentric worldview, or models that provide alternate economic perspectives to capitalism. We examined these other perspectives and worldviews and what lessons they provide that we can apply to our current Canadian framework that will enhance our resilience as a society.
From our newfound understanding of these four key areas (historical examples of societal collapse, existential risks, resilience, and alternative worldviews and perspectives), we have identified six major themes that embody our key insights: refocusing worldviews, energy continuum, unpacking collapse, resilience framework, actual risk versus risk perception, and dominant and alternate worldviews. Our interview analysis has provided us with four areas of opportunity, and we offer practical and realistic suggestions for specific stakeholders to enhance resilience in Canadian society
Spatial Design Recommendations for Inclusive Early Childhood Learning Spaces
Get PDFEffective design of an inclusive early childhood learning facility can foster learning for children with special cognitive needs. Inclusive early childhood learning facilities are integral in supporting children aged 2.5- 5 years by providing them with a space that offers flexible and adaptable programming to meet their individual needs.
Data collection methods employed in this study include a literature review and semi-structured interviews. The intent of the study was to include and capture perspectives of built environment designers, educators, and other experts in this area of study, by exploring existing knowledge and literature on learning needs of children with special cognitive needs, impact of learning space design on child development, principles of learning space design and ways to include perspectives of multiple groups of stakeholders in the process of design. Semi structured interviews were conducted with educators who are involved in the process of inclusive learning in early childhood learning facilities and school board therapists who understand the learning needs of children with special cognitive needs. Data collected using above mentioned methods was amalgamated and analyzed using thematic analysis to propose spatial design principles, strategies, and recommendations to design and create effective and inclusive early childhood learning spaces that address the needs of children with special cognitive needs.
This study attempts to make the first step towards creating design recommendations for inclusive early childhood learning spaces that capture perspectives and opinions of included stakeholders. Next steps in this process could be, including advice, perspectives and solutions proposed by children and their parents on the generated recommendations to iterate, test, and verify them. This study also provides insights and strategies to support the potential next steps. This study is grounded in inclusive research methodologies
Healthy Eyes, Healthy Life: The Viewing Distance Monitor
Get PDFAs we enter the era of technological advancements, our lives are becoming more convenient and connected than ever before. However, the health problems caused by technology must be addressed. In daily life, many people have the unhealthy habit of staring at screens for prolonged periods of time, which can lead to various health issues. These problems arise from two main issues: prolonged screen time and improper distance between the eyes and screen.
To address these issues, I have designed a distance monitoring system. This computer- vision-based system monitors the viewing distance of users in real-time and alerts them to maintain a healthy distance from the screen through prompts