Kenya Context Day

Thursday 16th of February, 11.00-17.00

With Catarina Östlund and Evance Otieno Odhiambo

Theme: Frugal Design Thinking

Catarina Östlund is running the course “Frugal Innovation” at Chalmers, previously involved in Reality Studio in Kenya.

Evance Odhiambo is involved in the Frugal Innovation course together with Catarina, he is a key partner of Zingira Community Craft in Kisumu, Kenya and has been engaged with the Reality Studio for many years.

Preparatory exercise

Students’ preparations in the morning (individual):

Map the products (objects, items, building parts) you are interacting with from morning up to lunch.

Limitations: Exclude products that are bigger than a human body and products that you don´t interact with physically. For example exclude the tram but include the tram seat, exclude the building but include the door handle.

Use simple sketches, notes, traces (of material) for visualization of the mapping.

Preliminary schedule

Morning: prepare for the afternoon session through above product interaction mapping exercise.

11-12.00: Lecture on Frugal Design thinking, Catarina and Evance

13.15-14.00: Introduction to assignment

14.15-16.00: Group assignment

16.15-17.00: Sharing and discussion

Assignment

Afternoon task (in group):

Gather in groups of three (pre-decided) and share your map-story in the group.

Together in the group, pick 3 products (one favourite from each person but don’t choose the same category of product). Discuss and analyse each product based on the questions in the template and with the following frugal statements in mind:

Do more with less
Concentration on core functionalities

Re-use, re-purpose, re-combine

Use the template for notes, sketches etc.

Together in the group, bring your template notes as well as a sketchbook and pen and go for a search of ideas/materials/spare parts that could be of use for possible improvements or

re-design of your product. Look both within the studio space and outside in the neighborhood. Sketch, model and make notes of new ideas during and after your search. See it as a way to generate ideas rather than creating complete solutions.

In the end of the day, sharing ideas, experiences, discussions.

Links

Zoom: https://chalmers.zoom.us/j/62823792114 (Password: RS23)

Link to miro board for the group exercise (including template): https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVP64WZGE=/?share_link_id=71833329206