NATLAB | 22 OCTOBER | 10:00-13:30

Organised by: Yuta Ikeya, Ege Kökel, Katharine Legun, Oscar Tomico, Dulaj Perera

Featuring: Project by Isa Jorritsma, Jotte de Koning, Zhuochao Peng (Dear Future)

In the Thriving Planet dialogue session, we organize collections of indoor & outdoor activities varying from a sensitizing walk for noticing ecological networks of the living and nonliving, a board game for coping with eco-anxiety, and an interactive installation to learn the ecological impact of using generative AI.

Dear Future

Digital Exhibition

Project by: Isa Jorritsma, Jotte de Koning, Zhuochao Peng

Recent research by Hickman (2021) reveals that more than half of the world's young people are extremely worried about climate change. This eco-anxiety is characterised by negative emotions due to the awareness of growing climate risks and environmental threats. When someone experiences eco-anxiety, it affects their mental health, often causing issues with sleep, work or socialising. There's a lack of interventions to help young people manage eco-anxiety and be integrated in their daily lives. In collaboration with the Ministry of Health, Welfare, and Sport, we developed a design intervention to help Dutch youngsters aged 15-21 cope with eco-anxiety in their daily lives.

Mini-exhibition & Panel discussion

NATLAB | 23 OCTOBER | 10:00-13:30

Organised by: Janet Huang (TUE), Jesse Josua Benjamin (TUE), Sage Cammers-Goodwin (UT), Davide Parrilli (TUD)

Featuring: Projects by Mahan Mehrvarz, Jerry de Vos, Aadjan Van Der Helm, Martin Havranek (Prompting Realities) and Romée Postma (Absurdist Chatbots)

The Digital Future has arrived but continues to evolve, constantly shaped by the imagination and innovation of today’s designers. This theme explores the transformation of the Digital Future through a curated selection of diverse, interactive artifacts. These projects explore the critical skills, human and non-human agencies, and pressing concerns that are shaping our world—elements that are not only vital today but will become even more essential as we move forward into the next phase of the Digital Future. The mini-exhibition and participatory panel discussion blend experiential learning with forward-thinking design, offering a platform for dialogue and exploration.

Prompting Realities

KLOKGEBOUW | 19 - 27 OCTOBER | 11:00 - 18:00

Project by: Mahan Mehrvarz, Jerry de Vos, Aadjan Van Der Helm, Martin Havranek

Prompting Realities aims to create a tangible gateway to a future where LLMs mediate between people and products. The project leverages recent LLM developments to stretch the imagination, envisioning a scenario where “iterative ChatGPT-style” interactions move beyond screen-based outcomes and enter the realm of physical reality. This shift highlights many possibilities, including blurring the boundary between design and use, and empowering users with greater agency in the design and engineering of their everyday products.

Can AI upgrade your relationships with your products? 

Absurdist Chatbots

Digital Exhibition

Project by: Romée Postma

In an era dominated by technological solutionism, AI is often seen as a quick fix for complex problems. To accelerate the adoption of AI, leading industries and policymakers consider the development of trustworthy AI a crucial prerequisite. Inspired by the surrealist philosophy of pataphysics, this project employs a novel, absurdist critical design to question the pursuit of trustworthy AI and its current solutions, specifically in the context of generative chatbots.

Can absurdist chatbots change the way we design AI?

SenseCab - A circular solution for medical wearable sensors

Digital Exhibition

Project by: Anna Statius Muller, Boris Kastelein, Olaf Bouwens, Ids Grupstra, Jamil Badloe, Josje Smulders

Medical wearable sensors (MWS) are crucial for monitoring both high-risk individuals and post-surgery patients. By reducing workload, MWS can help counter the effect of rising healthcare staff shortages. However, MWS are mostly discarded after a single use, wasting valuable electronic components with critical raw materials and high energy production costs. These components could be reused to cut e-waste.

Our goal is to enable the reuse of MWS to support a circular healthcare system, minimizing e-waste and logistical issues at hospital wards. How can we make reusability in healthcare more feasible?

Column by: Dave Murray-Rust

Designing for the future has an allure - why design for the way things are now when we can be bold, experiment with, and paint pictures of worlds just on the verge of becoming? There's a thrill to making something new, probing the edges of possibility by asking not "How might we?" but "What might be?". So, why is this important?

Guided meditations, Designer presentations & Dialogues

NATLAB | 24 OCTOBER | 10:00-13:30

Organised by: Haian Xue (TU Delft), Naomi van Stralen (UTwente), Svetlana Mironcika (TU/e), Tingting Wang (TU Delft)

Featuring: Project by Timothy Houtman, Keyue Bao (The Mapping of Me: Crafting Sustainable Health Practices)

At this event, people with creative minds can explore, from differing perspectives, how thoughtful design and emerging technologies can enhance health and foster well-being. Participants engage in activities that center the body as the core of human experience, share relevant design and research projects, and discuss the diverse values that shape our understanding of well-being. Through these discussions and interactions, we aim to reveal how design can cultivate harmony at the individual, community, and systemic levels, which ultimately leads to people leading healthier and more fulfilling lives. Whether you are a designer, health professional, community leader, systems thinker, or simply interested in the intersection of these fields, this event provides a unique opportunity to learn, share, and grow in a collaborative environment that celebrates the power of design to create a more harmonious world.

Stimulating Therapeutic Engagement for Neurodivergent Children Through a Robotic Ball

KLOKGEBOUW | 19 - 27 OCTOBER | 11:00 - 18:00

Project by: Kumsal Kurt

Artefacts mediate the interaction between therapists’ goals and children’s engagement during sessions but when these artefacts lack meaning for the children, maintaining their attention becomes challenging. How can artefacts align therapists' goals with children's intrinsic motivation for play?

In this study, we explored the potential of Fizzy, a spherical robot, in promoting engagement between therapists and neurodivergent children within special education settings. This goal is particularly valuable, as engagement and motivation are often challenging to maintain for neurodivergent individuals.

Let’s Talk Menopause

Digital Exhibition

Project by: Alejandra Gomez Ortega, Renee Noortman, Daisy O’Neill, Svetlana Mironcika, Carmen Heuvelmans

The transition into menopause is a phase in life that not only brings physical changes but also influences a person's social, sexual, and mental experiences. Unfortunately, it is often regarded as a taboo topic and therefore it isn’t much talked about, which leaves many people unprepared for the changes they go through and without the support they need. In the Netherlands, different generations tend to live separately, so we don’t often see or learn from each other's experiences with menopause. This project aims to help mothers, daughters, and others talk about the often hidden and unspoken experiences of menopause by engaging in creative activities together.

What does menopause really feel like?

CapriXpress: eHealth Support for Patients Before Cardiac Rehab

Digital Exhibition

Project by: Jasper Faber, Jos Kraal, Nienke ter Hoeve, Isra Al-Dhahir, Linda Breeman, Niels Chavannes, Andrea Evers, Hans Bussmann, Rita van den Berg-Emons, Valentijn Visch

Socioeconomic position (SEP) significantly impacts health outcomes, with individuals in lower SEPs experiencing a seven-year reduction in lifespan due to chronic illnesses like cardiac disease. Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) reduces mortality following a cardiac event, but there are pronounced differences in the effectiveness of and adherence to CR among low SEP patients, particularly during the waiting period following their discharge from hospital when patients are most receptive to lifestyle advice. However, support typically begins eight weeks later when CR starts and people's motivation for CR participation and lifestyle changes decrease, especially among low SEP patients. To better utilize this "teachable window," it is crucial to offer motivational support during this period. 

Should healthcare be responsible for guiding patients during care gaps?

Connecting Personal Health and Local High-tech Food Production in Cities

Digital Exhibition

Project by: Miranda Meuwissen, Max Koppenberg, Oscar Sottie, Caroline Figueroa, Kathleen Guan, Anand Gavai, Donika Xhani, Cristina Zepeda, Sophia Renner, Renner, Maral Mahdad, Maaike Dijkstra

To accelerate food system transformations, local and contextualised solutions are needed. Current physical and digital technologies are mostly developed in silos and with leading market players. They are therefore not connected to local consumer food and health demands, data sovereignty and local context. Our project introduces ground-breaking designs at odds with the current situation. Creating sustainable business models requires rethinking stakeholders' vested interests. For the first time, data platform architectures put consumers in charge of their data. 

Redesign of the HeartEye Portable ECG Device for Home Use

Digital Exhibition

Project by: Lucas Habets, Prof. dr. ir. Jan-Carel Diehl, Prof. dr. ir. Maaike Kleinsmann, Tjebbe Tauber, Heleen Willemsen

Cardiovascular diseases are the leading global cause of death, with coronary artery disease (CAD) accounting for a third of deaths in individuals aged over 35 in the United States.  While electrocardiography (ECG) has been a crucial diagnostic tool for over a century, traditional 12-lead ECG systems are confined to hospitals due to their size, cost, and complexity. This limits frequent ECGs, which have been shown to greatly reduce mortality. HeartEye has developed technology to create clinical-grade 12-lead ECGs in a compact form. However, the current design is limited for use by medical professionals in hospitals. The challenge for this project was to redesign the HeartEye device for home use, increasing its accessibility for, often elderly, patients managing CAD by themselves in their own homes.

Shaman in the Office: Design speculations on the future of psychedelic microdosing in the workplace

Digital Exhibition

Project by: Gül Onat

Psychedelic research has gained prominence in the scientific and mainstream media, signalling a 'psychedelic renaissance'. Substances such as LSD, MDMA, and psilocybin show significant therapeutic potential for mental health problems, including PTSD, depression, addiction, and anxiety. With medical approval for MDMA and psilocybin expected soon, especially in the US, interest in these substances is growing.

More recently, the concept of microdosing - taking small, regular doses of psychedelics with a specific intention - has gained attention as a new tool for self-improvement, personal growth, and enhanced well-being. Becoming popular in Silicon Valley corporate culture as a 'productivity hack', microdosing is praised for subtle improvements in mood, focus, and creativity, and its popularisation has resulted in significant online activity and public support.

Despite this growing interest, there is still a lack of evidence on the short- or long-term effects of microdosing. The potential ethical implications of increased, socially accepted use remain unclear, and there is uncertainty about regulation due to unforeseen risks and political conflicts.

The Mapping of Me: Crafting Sustainable Health Practices

Digital Exhibition

Project by: Timothy Houtman, Keyue Bao

Adolescence is a time of rapid social, emotional, and physical change. New friendships, environments, and experiences often compete with behaviours that support well-being. Although many adolescents understand what’s healthy and value their well-being, taking consistent action is difficult when the benefits aren’t immediately visible.

So how can we help adolescents develop health practices that adapt to their evolving lives? Knowing what’s good for us is only part of the solution. Health education often tells us what to do but rarely shows us how to implement it. Our goal was to create a tool for health education that helps adolescents align their health behaviours with their changing environments, giving them the resources to create their own health behaviour strategies.

Are we teaching young people well-being or just informing them?

Editorial by: Tingting Wang, Naomi van Stralen, Svetlana Mironcika, Haian Xue 

As the world becomes increasingly complex, design presents innovative solutions to enhance people's mental, social, and physical well-being. We invite visitors to explore how thoughtful design and new technologies can enhance health and foster well-being in people’s lives. This year's projects reflect a broad spectrum of topics and highlight how design can contribute to individual, community, and societal health and well-being. Together, they demonstrate the potential of design to create positive change.

Philosophical perspectives on harmony in designing for wellbeing

Column by: Derek Lomas

A ritual central to science is the PhD defence. At Leiden University, the oldest university in the Netherlands, this ceremony unfolds in an ornate auditorium where stained glass windows cast coloured light onto centuries-old wood panels. Then picture a procession of senior scholars, each adorned in black robes and peculiar hats as if plucked from a medieval painting.

Recently, I witnessed my friend Ahnjili ZhuParris's defence, an AI engineer with a flair for the artistic. I'd first encountered Ahnjili at the "AI and Experience Design" conference in Amsterdam, where she showcased her provocative AI artworks. Her "fashion police" drones, using computer vision to identify "fashion crimes," were particularly unsettling.

Editorial by: Pieter Desmet

What makes people truly happy? This question has gained new significance in a world that’s rethinking the limits of materialism. As economic expansion continues to raise social and environmental concerns, designers are looking for a deeper sense of purpose. Many have embraced a modern form of humanism as a guide to creating designs that foster human capabilities. This philosophy, rooted in Socratic thought, advanced by Abraham Maslow, and reinvigorated by the positive psychology movement, adapts a holistic view on human existence, emphasizing the potential for human self-actualization—the flourishing of individuals and communities.