PolyU Maker Fund Programme supports maker dreams of young designers

Young makers have been encouraged under the resources and network provided by PolyU. In the latest PolyU Maker Fund Programme presented by the Knowledge Transfer and Entrepreneurship Office, PolyU students and alumni across different disciplines were granted funds to support their dreams in making.  Among them all, winners from School of Design include:  Woo Pak Fai, Master of Design in Design Strategies (2014) Yau Chit Kwan, BA (Hons) in Industrial & Product Design (2011) Chan Tak Keung, HD in Product Innovation Technology (2008) Chan Chi Leung, Master of Design in Advanced Practices (2007) Pang Chin Wai Cherry, International design and business management (2021) Tam Tsz Shan, BA(Hons) Scheme in Design (Year 4) Elaine Leung (MScMET 2021)  This programme is a brand-new initiative tailor-made for Hong Kong’s young makers and hardware developers to realize their ideas through the support of Youth Development Fund (YDF). It aims to accelerate local hardware start-ups’ product development from ideas to production, leveraging the manufacturing capabilities of Shenzhen and other Greater Bay Area (GBA) cities. Learn more: https://www.polyumakerfund.hk/  Congratulations to all winners! Look forward to the good works!

Customisable ergonomic furniture designed by PolyU scholars to benefit 2,000 subdivided flats’ residents

A design team from PolyU Design formed by Dr Tulio Maximo as Project Leader, Dr Paul Lo and three student assistants has recently been awarded prestigious Red Dot Award: Product Design 2022 in Germany with the “Omni Study System” in recognition of its achievement on improving well-being and studying condition of underprivileged children residing in subdivided flats in Hong Kong through human-centered adjustable design.   “Omni Study System” features a set of tailor-made ergonomic furniture including a table, chairs, stools, reading boards, leg rests and cushions to provide a more optimal studying space for the children and to support their healthy development. It aims to offer an affordable solution to provide equal opportunity to learn, study and create under the harsh living conditions of restrictive living space.  The system is designed under a cross-disciplinary project as the result of the Action Project on Adaptive Design and Child-friendly Furniture in Subdivided Units commissioned by Jockey Club Design Institute for Social Innovation (JCDISI). The design comes from School of Design’s Asia Lifestyle Design Lab and Public Design lab in collaboration with the Department of Biomedical Engineering, the School of Optometry, the Salvation Army and JCDISI.  2,000 families will be benefited as the furniture will be issued to them starting from August, supported by Hongkong Land HOME FUND – a fund established in November 2020 to empower younger generation, promote social inclusion and assist those facing housing-related challenges in Hong Kong. To learn more about the design, click here.

Environment and Interior design projects shine at international Architecture Masterprize 2021

The Environment and Interior Design team has brought us good news from the Architecture Masterprize, a prestigious international competition appreciating quality architectural design worldwide. Yuen Siu Faat Bryan (2021 graduate) won two Honorable Mentions at the Architecture MasterPrize 2021 with his capstone project ‘Palace of Escape’ supervised by Peter Hasdell in the categories of Architecture Design/ Conceptual Architecture and Architecture Design/ Mixed Use Architecture. The project is to build an ever-changing adult-exclusive overnight recreational and leisure complex inside a first-class container terminal in Hong Kong. Using a repetitive tectonic structural framework, increases mobility, adaptability, and flexibility of the construction, it is designed to house a variety of different capsule modules for stationery night life programme. In addition to Bryan’s merits, as reported earlier, his supervisor Mr Peter Hasdell’s House of Dreams project is winner in the Restoration and Renovation category. It is a co-effort under the Insitu Project research platform directed by Mr Hasdell and Kuo Jze Yi, collaborated with Department of Applied Social Science and other parties. The project is an innovative community led revitalization of a cave area in Zhoushan, China, into a Rural Development and Training Facility. Learn more: https://bit.ly/3KQ3aRU https://bit.ly/3IgN55V https://bit.ly/30Dz56G

MDes capstone work won Most Innovative Vision Award by TEI 2022 Student Design Challenge

Congratulations to Miss Xiaoge WANG (MDes (Interaction Design) graduate, 2021) on winning the Most Innovative Vision Award of TEI 2022 Student Design Challenge (SDC)!  The award was given to recognise the achievement of Xiaoge's capstone project “Nature Jar: Design for Facilitating Nature Connectedness and Restoration in Home Scenario” which was supervised by Dr Huaxin Wei. It is a project aiming to use design and technology to gently intervene in people's perceptive and behavioral transformations by encouraging them to notice, value, and have more contact with the nearby nature, as well as deliver nature’s restorative effects. Her submitted extended abstract was published in the ACM TEI'22 Proceedings that marks an international recognition of the high-quality work.   The TEI is ACM's Annual Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction and her presentation to the jury was held online on 16 February 2022. In addition to the award, Xiaoge's project is also winner of the Master of Design Outstanding Final Project Scholarship 2020/21. Link to her publication can be found here.

Environment and Interior Design projects sweep 4 awards from IFI GAP DDA 2022

Congratulations to graduates from our Environment and Interior Design programme on winning awards from the prestigious IFI GAP DDA 2022! These proud young graduates and awards received with their capstone projects are: [Silver Winner] The new type of community by Xiaoqian Ariana Yao (Tutor: Anneli Giencke, 2020) [Bronze Winner] Plastscape by Wing Yee Sardonna Leung (Tutor: Peter Hasdell, 2021) [Bronze Winner] Guerrilla Planter by Cheuk Sum Leung (Tutor: Anneli Giencke, 2020) [Bronze Winner] The Venn by Shuk Man Katie Shiu (Tutor: Anneli Giencke, 2020) Category: STUDENT (Design Projects by Interior Architecture/Design Students and Recent Graduates) The winners swept more than half of the total seven prizes available under the Student Category. It is international recognition to the high quality work of both students and teaching team. The winners were announced during the online ceremony from New York on 22 Feb (HK Time).  

Cross-departmental cooperation gained recognition

An interdisciplinary team formed by our Year 2 Interactive Media students Tiffany Choi and Vivian Yeung and other PolyU students/graduates has been recognised in recent contests and received funding of around HK$25,000 to support further development of their project ‘GoSmart’ that is designed to support the visually impaired for daily commuting. Tiffany and Vivian with three other students from PolyU AMA (Data Science) won the 2nd Runner-up prize from SciTech Challenge 2021 which was themed "technology enabled by voice" and organised by The Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation. The core members from PolyU Design are also awardees of the Good Seed SIE Fund for the team work with other PolyU graduates. The celebration is not only for the prize, but also for interdisciplinary collaboration between students from different departments. It was a great opportunity for the students to understand the process and the journey of design to AI Application and AI Application in the area of Smart City and Spatial Big Data Analytics. Congratulations to the students and let’s look forward to hearing more good news from cross-departmental collaborations!

Students redesigned old shrimp paste shop in Tai O

A team of Environment and Interior Design students have joined the “Tai O Let's Go Cultural Festival” to renovate a local shrimp paste shop and design equipment for it. The project aims to help the old store to tell its very unique story to the public while adding new elements to local environment. Led by Mr Michael Chan, Senior Teaching Fellow of PolyU Design, the team started from taking time to build relations and trust with the shop owners, then managed to design for their needs. Deliverables included an eye-catching installation that helped refreshing the exterior of shop with a long history. The Festival was organised by The Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups (HKFYG) in partnership with the Tai O Cultural Association last December to promote local tourism and culture of the traditional fishermen’s village. Among a few spotlight activities of the Festival, “Tai O Stores Go!” that our design students participated involved 70 design students guided by designers from the Hong Kong Interior Design Association to reimagine, redesign and refurbish ten old stores in a melody of traditional and creative components. In the media: 卓閱旅途——大澳Let's Go文化節 (頭條日報 2021-12-23)

Cross-departmental cooperation gained recognition

We are excited to announce that Dr Shih Yi-teng, Assistant Professor of PolyU Design is recently awarded a funding from the one-off Collaborative Research Fund (CRF) COVID-19 and Novel Infectious Diseases (NIR) Research Exercise for an amount of HK$2.78 million. The funding provides great opportunities for Dr Shih as project leader to work with other universities' researchers. The project is named “The Effect of Distance Design Collaboration Necessitated by COVID-19 on Brain Synchronicity in Teams Compared to Co-Located Design Collaboration” and will last for three years.  This timely study examines changes in design behaviour (e.g., body language, thinking patterns, etc.) of design teams working remotely during COVID-19. The project outcomes are expected to contribute to academia and industry in the field of design.   The CRF is under government’s Research Grants Council (RGC) and supports Research Equipment and Research Projects for acquisition of major research facilities or equipment, and promoting group research across disciplines respectively.

Winners of HSBC Greater Bay Area (Hong Kong) Scholarship 2020/21 announced

Sharon Choi Yuet-sum, Year-4 student of BA (Hons) in Communication Design has been awarded HSBC Greater Bay Area (Hong Kong) Scholarship 2020/21 with other two PolyU students. The scholarship was launched by The Hongkong Bank Foundation to support undergraduates’ studies, internships or activities that can help fulfil their career aspirations in the Greater Bay Area (GBA). Each scholarship recipient was awarded HK$80,000 as an endorsement of their career development plans in the GBA. Sharon aspired to rebrand the GBA’s urban identity with interesting methods such as using 3D animation in the future. Other awardees of PolyU are students from BEng (Hons) in Electronic and Information Engineering and BA (Hons) in Social Policy and Administration.

PolyU designs ergonomic furniture to help kids in sub-divided flats

PolyU’s Jockey Club Design Institute for Social Innovation (JCDISI), in partnership with the School of Design, the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the School of Optometry, has designed a set of tailor-made ergonomic furniture for underprivileged children living in subdivided flats. The furniture set, including a table, chairs, stools, reading boards, leg rests and cushions, will be issued to 2,000 families starting from August, supported by Hongkong Land HOME FUND – a fund established in November 2020 to empower the younger generation, promote social inclusion and assist those facing housing-related challenges in Hong Kong.  “Thanks to HOME FUND, we have been able to refine the prototype furniture and produce an ergonomically designed set of furniture to enhance the development of children living in sub-divided units,” said Kar-Kan Ling, Director of DISI. “Due to limited space and natural light, children living in sub-divided units are prone to health issues, including eyesight and spinal problems, that can affect their academic performance. This set of furniture brings together the expertise of design, biomedical engineering, optometry and allied health specialists to improve the children’s learning development.” To learn more about this meaningful collaboration, please take a look at the recent news reports here (Pulse@PolyU, Jan 2022).