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Delft Design Stories

24 October 2024

Including residents in energy hubs could solve energy poverty

Wind turbines, solar panels, batteries. We are producing, consuming and distributing energy more locally. This offers opportunities to solve challenges like energy poverty. “But if we want to create just, fair, and successful energy hubs, we must make them understandable and relevant for everyone," says researcher Abhigyan Singh.

25 March 2020

Giving all children space to play

Several hundred children in the Netherlands are lying in hospital beds, undergoing cancer treatment; around the world, that number is in the millions. Treatment can last for months and, even when a child’s treatment comes to an end, there are the follow up visits, which go on for a further three years on average. Children undergoing cancer treatment lose out on a lot, from attending school to playing sports. Boudewijn Boon, who just completed his PhD at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, developed a framework in his thesis to help these children with something else they miss out on: play.

17 March 2020

Designing to solve large-scale problems? Learn from Leonardo da Vinci

It sounds so good - industrial design engineering for a better world. However, these designs need to address a complex reality. Doctoral candidate Wouter Kersten has been investigating a method that would map this complexity even before the start of the design process.

29 January 2020

Dear Plastic,

Although my professors would prefer me to call you by your specific polymer name, I will keep calling you ‘plastic’ on an informal basis. After all, that is how I first got to know you. In my very early years of existence you were there to calm me down, serving as a beacon of familiarity. I do not think it is weird to say that you might have been one of my best friends of that time. And from that moment on, our relationship has only grown.

24 January 2020

Changing the world with only four screws

The planet is heating up. The oceans are filling with plastic. These are problems that will require huge, cooperative efforts to fix. Francesco De Fazio wanted to do his part. He discovered that just moving four screws on a vacuum cleaner could make a big difference. Text: Molly Quell Toasters and malaria Originally from Italy, Francesco came to Delft to study Integrated Product Design. “Everyone at The Polytechnic University of Milan knows about TU Delft,” he says, which is where he earned his bachelor’s degree. He wanted to improve his English and focus on sustainability issues, and he felt he could do both things in the Netherlands. During his second semester Francesco set to work on the design of the Excelscope - a medical device which can detect malaria with the aid of a smartphone. He readily admits that he spent a lot of that period thinking that the challenge was too great: “It was a lot of pressure for someone who had designed toasters.” The project went on to win the Dutch national James Dyson Award in 2018. Being successful under that amount of pressure came in handy when he went on to his internship. Francesco knew that he wanted to work with a large company, where he felt he could have a bigger impact. And he knew he wanted to work with a Dutch company, which cared about sustainability. He landed a project with the largest and the most quintessentially Dutch company possible for an industrial design engineer: Philips. Green pressure from Brussels While Francesco was worried about his workload in Delft, in Brussels the European Commission was worrying about product repairability. In autumn 2019, the European Commission, as part of its push to make Europe greener, implemented regulations that would require companies to make appliances longer lasting, both by extending lifespans but also by making them easier to repair. These so-called Right to Repair regulations will go into effect in 2021. They are accompanied by a scoring system for companies to determine how easy their products are to repair. The idea is that consumer products should be easier to fix. “Together with smarter energy labels, our eco-design measures can save European consumers a lot of money, as well as help the EU reduce its greenhouse gas emissions,” says European Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy, Miguel Arias Cañete. The problem goes beyond climate change. According to the Global E-Waste Monitor, in 2016, the world created 44.7 million metric tons of e-waste, which includes items like computers, smart phones and washing machines. Only about 20% of that is recycled, with the rest going to landfills or being incinerated. As Francesco would discover, repairing something can be difficult to learn. In current product models, repair work is often time consuming and requires special tools. But surveys show that 77% of consumers in the European Union would like to repair rather than replace. Initiatives such Delft’s Repair Cafe reflect public enthusiasm for more of a make do and mend attitude. Ambitious compromises Philips wanted Francesco to look at several products and assess them for their repairability, underneath the new European Commission framework. “I thought ‘This is exciting’ but I wanted to be able to propose a tangible redesign as well,” he says. He also had another request: that he be allowed to score non-Philips products so the company would also have a sense of how they stacked up against the competition. Philips was receptive to the idea but wanted him to focus on the assessment. So, he found a highly ambitious compromise of sorts. He would get the assessment done in three months and then have three months to work on a redesign. “It cost me a lot of nights and weekends,” he admits. In the end, he selected seven vacuum cleaners - four from Philips and three from competitors - for the first part of his project. There were no guidelines for the process of testing repairability, only a scoring system from the European Commission. In the process of his thesis, he documented his procedure. More than a sum of the parts One of the most important takeaways from his research was his Disassembly Map. This allows someone to map the entire assembly and disassembly of the most important components. Francesco is currently working on an academic paper to document this process together with Professor Ruud Balkenende, which will show other companies and designers how they can do the same thing. Some of the vacuums were extremely complicated to take apart, requiring multiple tools and an extensive series of steps. Others, Francesco describes as “beautiful.” One vacuum he looked at only required the removal of three screws to access the main components. The analysis required him to disassemble and reassemble the same vacuum multiple times. He watched a lot of YouTube videos of people online disassembling vacuums to get a feel for how it was done. “There are a lot of Russian-speaking men who do this for some reason,” he says. Francesco figured out what parts were most critical and which were the most likely to break and how many steps it took to access them. Even though Philips only requested the assessment, he wanted his thesis to be about something more. The existing product design approach at Philips only partially considered repairability as part of the process. Francesco thought that if he could demonstrate the impact of a simple solution, he could convince them to put repairability as a central consideration in the design process. “Every change came with a problem,” he says. He would come up with what he thought was a simple solution, only to be told by someone else in the manufacturing chain that making that adjustment would unleash tremendous issues. As Francesco found out, vacuums must do more than being effective at removing dirt from your floor. They must, like most consumer appliances, meet safety standards. They must be able to be manoeuvred in certain ways. They can’t weigh too much. And, of course, production costs must be kept low. Solving the puzzle Using his Disassembly Map, he eventually figured out several solutions. One, however, was remarkable in its simplicity. By merely adjusting the position of four screws in the casing of one vacuum model, the entire external case of the Philip’s vacuum could be removed in a single step. In the current design, it took seven steps. Philips wasn’t the only one who was impressed with this outcome. His committee awarded him a 10 cum laude on his thesis. “Francesco's work is outstanding because it combines a thorough research approach with real-world impact. Not only did he make an extensive analysis of the repairability of 7 vacuum cleaners, leading to a new design tool; he also convinced Philips of the need to take repairabiltiy into account in their vacuum cleaners.” - Professor Conny Bakker The easier it is to get to the main components; the faster and easier products can be serviced. Francesco prefers to use the term “serviceability” rather than “repairability,” since the goal is for companies, or certified repair persons, to fix them, not the consumers. Regardless of who does the repair work, the easier the process, the less likely someone is to throw away the old appliance and buy a new one. And, if someone does want to upgrade, the easier it is to disassemble, the easier it is to recycle. That means that fewer vacuum cleaners will end up in landfills. After taking all those vacuums apart over and over, repairability is now something that de Fazio considers when buying new products. “But it’s really difficult for the consumer to know, how easy or hard it is to repair something. Unless you can find someone on YouTube who has already done it.” He would love to see mandatory labeling on products to show the level of difficulty in disassembly. Perhaps that’s a problem Francesco can work on his new role. Philips was so happy with de Fazio that they created a new position for him, as a Circular Product Designer, which he started in January 2020. Back to Home Health & Care Climate Action Urbanisation & Mobility Energy Transition Digital Society Francesco De Fazio linkedin This is a story of Industrial Design Engineering Francesco De Fazio This is a story of Industrial Design Engineering Conny Bakker +31 (0)15 27 89822 C.A.Bakker@tudelft.nl Room B-3-330 linkedin pure Bas Flipsen +31 (0)15 27 89398 s.f.j.flipsen@tudelft.nl Room 32-B-3-090 Present on: Mon-Tue-Thu-Fri "Leave tracks, no traces." linkedin pure Ruud Balkenende +31 15 27 81658 a.r.balkenende@tudelft.nl Room B-3-310 linkedin

05 December 2019

Positive Artificial Intelligence vibes

Willem van der Maden recently started his PhD position at Industrial Design Engineering (TU Delft), focusing on ‘Positive AI’. We caught up with him briefly to ask him about his goals at IDE and what we might expect to see come out of several AI projects of the faculty.

28 November 2019

The Road to Schistoscope

For half a year, a team of six dedicated students worked endlessly on solving the problems around diagnosing Schistosomiasis in Nigeria. The tipping point for their project; seeing not only the eggs, but also the spine of the disease in the pictures made by their product. But before reaching this milestone, the team had to overcome many obstacles through weeks of hard work, motivation and creative problem solving. Tina Ekhtiar and Talitha Brenninkmeyer share the ins and outs of the process.

14 November 2019

"Designed for our Future"

When I was cleaning out my archives from my student days at Industrial Design Engineering (IDE), I happened upon an interactive demo that bore an eerie resemblance to current day taxi-summoning services. Anyone who has been involved in design education, either as a teacher or a student, has probably experienced the same feeling of déjà vu.

Delft Design Stories

Read the stories of researchers and students at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, and discover the scientific questions on which they work and the solutions they present.

Including residents in energy hubs could solve energy poverty

Wind turbines, solar panels, batteries. We are producing, consuming and distributing energy more locally. This offers opportunities to solve challenges like energy poverty. “But if we want to create just, fair, and successful energy hubs, we must make them understandable and relevant for everyone," says researcher Abhigyan Singh.

Unburdening the power grid with energy hubs: here’s how it works

Technically, it can be done, but in practice, it rarely succeeds: better matching the supply and demand of energy users to generate and use more power with the same grid. For her graduation project, TU Delft Odile Niers designed four interventions that succeed in initiating energy hubs in business parks. "We need to focus a lot more on social relationships," she says.

AI voice assistant helps the visually impaired learn digital skills

We are glued to our screens. Televisions, computers, tablets, smartphones. They offer a world of possibilities and are – for the most part - easy to use. But what about people who are visually impaired or blind? Are their needs considered when designing these devices? No, says IDE alumnus Konrad Krawczyk. That’s why he created an AI-based voice assistant to help people with visual impairment learn digital skills.

Interview with Jan-Carel Diehl: “TU Delft is one big research playground”

Professor of Design for Inclusive Sustainable Healthcare Jan-Carel Diehl combines healthcare solutions with care for our planet. His many projects make an impact from Rotterdam to Sub-Saharan Africa. Where does he want to make a difference? What is he most proud of? And where lies the added value of a designer in the healthcare sector? Find out in this interview. Prof Diehl gives his inaugural lecture at TU Delft's Aula on Friday 11 October.

Sustainability scores could boost green travel

How do we gently push travellers to explore more sustainable travel methods, such as trains? IDE alumnus Jenske Gosens dedicated her graduation project to figuring this out. Her recommendation? A neutral booking platform that assigns sustainability scores to different travel methods. “This platform both motivates and facilitates different kinds of travellers.”

Interview with Elvin Karana: “Technology can be a valuable tool to rebuild our bond with nature”

Elvin Karana is a Professor of Materials Innovation and Design at the TU Delft, Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering and a global frontrunner in the field of biodesign research. In this interview, we explore what inspires her to study at the intersection of biology and design. What the not-so-distant future holds for biodesign research. And what makes her research group so unique.

How to embed citizens’ values in smart traffic systems

The ‘Code the Streets’ system is being developed to allow for road space to be used for different activities throughout the day. But how do we choose, in a fair way, what our roads will be used for? IDE alumni Fabian Geiser designed a system map that helps to embed stakeholder values like safety and inclusivity into navigation systems.