»Future of Work« was a mid-term project in summer term 2016, led by Professor Utikal in collaboration with TÜV Rheinland. KISD students were asked to develop concepts for a trade fair event called ›Night of Technology‹ in Cologne under the topic »Future of Work«. In this project 24 students from 16 nationalities informed themselves about historical and actual trends. As a result there were various outcomes including concepts for an exhibition, a product, posters, a game, and infographics.
Industrie 4.0
Angelica Padilla, Kaon Kim, Johanna Rohrer
The new transformation Industrie 4.0 is the key to understand »Future of Work«. However, not all of us are aware of the topic nor understand what changes it could eventually bring. ›Industrie 4.0‹ was an installation concept that showed the anticipation on future work in text and videos from both sides; the scientists and regular citizens. The visitors were introduced to the theme ›Industrie 4.0‹ from the scientist’s texts at the center of the installation and had opportunity to learn further by the explanatory videos. Citizens’ opinion was reflected at the 4 substations. The subcategories were made to break down the big topic ›Industrie 4.0‹ and make it more accessible to us. The subtopics were such as Robots and Humans and Digital Transformation. At the stations visitors could find honest and interesting opinions from the interview videos of citizens.
The Pain in Aging
Pui Yu Carol Ng
›The Pain in Aging‹ is an infographic aimed at raising the issue of elderly’s life quality after retirement. As medical technologies rapidly develops, humans have longer lifespans. The assumption for this concept was that people could have infinite lifespan in the context of future. However, aging is still an unavoidable phenomenon. When people spend larger proportion of their lifetime of being old, it is possible that they have to suffer more. In fact, people already suffer from aging-related disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and organ degeneration. What if we can promote longer but still healthier life? This infographic illustrates the possible scenarios to achieve this goal.
Yawning Lamp
YiHao Tsai
This lamp is designed to remind workers of their hunger for relax. Everyone is looking forward to work easier in the due to the improved technology. But, look back over the history of technology improvement happened these decades, technology has assisted workers to get tremendous growth of productivity; nevertheless workers can never get less stress and work loading. In the future world, which is still structured by capitalism, the tragic history will doomed to be repeated in the future. Will we have any actual free time to relax in the future? Could we escape from this kind of destiny? That’s why we need a lamp which could yawn with you while your body telling you that you are really tired.
Con Verge
Chung Wei Li
Can we better concentrate with a different form of private space? Most of the private space is either sphere- or square-shaped. Why not a cone-shape? ›Con Verge‹ is a lamp-inspired product that creates a cone-shaped individual working space. The concept came from the idea that lamps tend to stay on our desk even though we use laptops and tablet PCs instead of paper these days. The lampshade is expanded to let a person work inside of it. If needed, an employee can block him/herself in this cone structure for a privacy, but it can also go back to its original function as a lighting device. After prototyping, a 3D model was developed. It included details such as an auto-rolling structure that was inspired by the leaf roller bug. To actualise this idea, a memory metal material could be used. For further development, a surrounding screen, possibly an OLED display, could be installed inside the lamp for the following functions: new messages notice, meeting information and time schedule.
Health Care of the Future
Fabio Faccin
In the future, new technology devices might threaten our health. As the technology advances day by day, we must adjust to the changes it brings. Design can help to solve such problems. How could we minimize the health issues related to technology, especially by making people aware of using technology with the medium of design? As a result of research, four different kinds of sicknesses were found. In a future dominated by wireless devices, nanotechnology implants on a human skin, hyperrealistic virtuality, and why not, robots; new illnesses like electromagnetic hypersensitivity syndrome, nanotoxicological shock, dissociative reality disorder and robophobia could become part of our daily life. »Health Care of the Future«, was an attempt to visually raise attention to such disease as the responsibility of designers.
Work&Stress
Hossein Khazaei
»By 2028, the ›Standard of Life‹ in Europe and the United States would be so improved that no one would need to worry about making money. ›Our grandchildren‹ would work about three hours a day, and even this reduced schedule would represent more labor than was actually necessary.«, quote in winter of 1928 by John Maynard Keynes. In reality, however, all these progresses in technology have not given us more free time. In fact, we are busier than ever. What are other problems that workers have to deal with in the future? ›Work & Stress’‹ was a design research to find out the possible stress situations in »Future of Work«.
Travel to the Future via Cinema
Pui Yee Ng
Science fiction movies always contain creative and interesting predictions about the future world. It is surprising that some of these innovative ideas, technologies and products in movies are already existing, while some of them are still being invented. Are you interested in how they work and how they could be used in the future work? Three information graphic posters are created based on the movies, »Back to the future» (1985) and »Ex Machina« (2015) and some predictions for the future in 2045. There are always 30 years in between. Now its up to you: find some interesting and even some new and crazy ideas.
Re-Recovering Resources – The Game
Gabriel Fiebelkorn, Santiago Guio
In the far future we would run out of natural resources, robots and artificial intelligence will replace most of the human work. Our environment will be full of waste and pollution. This is of course a dark perspective of the future, but it is a possibility. We developed a board game, which shows playfully how we could deal with our waste and pollution. It comes with the idea of some new job characters, who start up their businesses forced to the given situation. This board game is already playable, tested and a lot of fun to play. Players would also find informative facts and social critics while playing.
