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Speaker: Siu Kin Wai, Michael 
Designing for the public is difficult. Public in general means that users of design have different and diverse backgrounds, needs, wants, expectations, and dreams, as well as fantasies. Moreover, these variables keep changing. To promote quality design, studies on everyday objects have been conducted since the 1990s. This guest lecture will first review the common biased perceptions and practices in considering and generating user-fit designs for the public. According to the case studies on the designs of street furniture and public facilities, the presentation will attempt to take “users” as the focus.
It will then argue a wider perspective that we need to have a balance considerations on the quality in design from three different levels: policy, implementation, and management. By using case studies of the designs of street furniture and public facilities such as public toilet facilities, the presentation will discuss how designs can fulfil diverse and continuously changing wants and needs of users. Each presented case will include the development of the details of the design according to the social, cultural, environmental and political factors.
Dr Siu is an associate professor of the School of Design, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He is a chartered engineer and chartered designer. He is now affiliated with the Department of Architecture of NUS as Visiting Scholar to conduct a research project related to public space. He is a fellow of the Chartered Society of Designers, the Royal Society of Arts, the Royal Geographical Society, the Royal Society of Health, and the College of Preceptors. He has been a visiting professor at universities in China and South Korea. He was a Fulbright Scholar at MIT (2002-2003), and an academic visitor in the Engineering Design Centre of the University of Cambridge (2001). His research and design focus is on both technological and social perspectives. He has been involved in a number of funded research and design projects related to street furniture and public facilities, and owns more than 30 design patents in the United States, PRC and other Asian countries. His articles have appeared in various journals including the Journal of Engineering Design, Design Issues, International Journal of Design, Critical Planning, Journal of Popular Culture, Popular Culture Review, Human Relations, Harvard Asia Pacific Review.
Wednesday 14 March 2007 |
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