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PolyU Design and Royal College of Art (UK) co-organised workshop on Human-Centred AI Design Methods

Workshop on Human-Centred AI Design Methods to Understand “Intelligent Systems Design empowered by Multisensory Experiences with Textiles” has been successfully held in collaboration between our MDes Intelligent System Design (ISD) programme and the Royal College of Art, UK (RCA).   Co-organising the workshop were Leader of the ISD programme and the Lab Studies subject (Intelligent Systems Construction), Prof. Stephen J. Wang, and RCA’s Textile MA tutor, Dr Elif Ozden Yenigun, and Research Associate Ms Lissy Hatfield. This workshop was to achieve the aims of co-generating tactile-based sensorial data for AI design tools and delivering the material centric design workshop to understand embodied ad tacit knowledge of the textile world.   Benefiting from the unique nature of ISD “Lab Studies” subjects, the purpose of the workshop was to understand human sensory experiences of textile materials, allowing students to explore the relationships between physical properties and characteristics and the subjective assessment of materials through the evaluation of textiles based on a range of physical gestures and actions that human adopted.    Guided by such experience, the ISD students brainstormed and developed ideas in groups around human-robot collaboration contributing to textile assessment at the end of the workshop.   PolyU School of Design’s Intelligent Systems Design (MDes) programme highly recognises data and intelligence-related technologies as critical components in nowadays’ industry and society. To develop students’ future-shaping creative design vision using the intelligent system, the transdisciplinary workshop, as a part of the ISD’s “Lab Studies: Intelligent Systems Construction” subject, has provided students with an opportunity to be involved in real-world research projects.   Prof. Stephen J. Wang emphasised that “this workshop is well aligned with ISD’s vision ‘to educate a new type of designer, one that has an in-depth understanding of data and intelligent technologies, system-focused thinking, innovative design skills, and engineering or technology mastery’. We should especially thank AiDLab management team, Research Associate Mr Zhengtao Ma, RCA Textile Circularity Centre’s Dr Chipp Jansen, and PhD students of PolyU Design Ms Yaqi Zhang and Ms Cong Fang for their assistance in the workshop’s preparation and operation.”

PolyU Design Announces New Research Centre of Future Caring Mobility and Opportunity for Partnerships

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University School of Design (PolyU Design) has announced the establishment of the Research Centre of Future Caring Mobility (Centre). The Centre has recently won a $7.5 million seed funding from the University's competitive research grant with matching funds from PolyU Design and partner institutions. The Centre represents a vision of interdisciplinary, cutting-edge STEAM (STEM + Art & Design) and innovative design approach emphasizing living, caring, and wellbeing under various mobility scenarios.  Prof. Stephen J. Wang, Director of the Centre, remarked that his team is determined to tackle on the "wicked" real-world challenges such as the future caring in transportation, transit UX, communication and integration of personal information in mobility, automobile cybersecurity, smart city fluidity & liveability, UX in emerging transport modes such as versatile & on-demand transport, and wellbeing aspects in connected and autonomous vehicles. Prof. Wang said: "This Centre will be the first in the world to focus on blurring various mobility related boundaries to envision the future of "caring-moving", and the research and design outcomes will significantly contribute to Hong Kong, Greater Bay Area, and the region." The Centre will focus on the potential benefits of mobility innovations for the economy, society, health, and wellbeing to perform high-impact research. It will provide a distinctive platform that will enable visionary design-led innovations that are useful, user-friendly, and cutting-edge. This platform will also benefit the next generation of researchers, designers, and innovators in this field by focusing on the end-users' evolving and unmet needs from both the caring and mobility perspectives, in addition to specialized technological knowledge. The Centre is currently working with major corporations and welcomes proposals for joint-research projects.    An innovative adaptable vehicle interior design to boost income-earning opportunities and reduce downtime between income-earning events for public passenger transport drivers is one example of caring mobility projects currently on exhibit at the PolyU Design Show 2022. By dividing the labour between cargo fleet, ride-hailing services and taxis, this strategy also enables the delivery industry to employ existing automobile journeys as extra resources to spread out the industry’s high demand.