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Product crossing: designing connections using a product example

Book Contribution - Book Chapter Conference Contribution

Today, more and more products are made with multi materials, hybrid materials and composite materials to fulfil the more and more requiring product needs. Therefore connections and joints play a key role in (product) design. How to connect different parts remains one of the core questions in the design of products. In practice designers often fall back on a few known joining solutions. Tools like a joining selection software can be useful but can also limit the creativity of the designer. Certainly, in the beginning of the design process. Existing creativity techniques, which are suitable for all types of problems, can be used, but are mostly holistic and superficial. Therefore there is a need for divergent and inspirational techniques that focuses on the design of products and their connections. In this paper the authors discuss an experimental method called U+201Cproduct crossingU+201D, in which a real product is used as inspiration during the idea generation. The method was tested with several students with different backgrounds (industrial (product) design and mechanical design). They translated product properties and aspects of the example product in the specific context of their design which resulted in surprising product ideaU+2019s. The different test cases are also discussed in this paper.
Book: SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION AND DESIGN
Volume: 2
Pages: 172 - 179
ISBN:9789490726010
Publication year:2011
Accessibility:Open