design odyssey beyond 2010

[Katerina Kyselica] ‘Design something that solves a problem’, asked British inventor, engineer and designer James Dyson of participants in the 2010 James Dyson International Award competition. The U.S. winner is the Copenhagen Wheel – a plug and play device that transforms existing bicycles quickly into hybrid electric bikes. But what problem does it solve?

Last week at the monthly IDNY meetup in NYC organized by Designer Pages and hosted by Humanscale, representatives of Dyson unveiled the winner of the U.S. round of the 2010 James Dyson International Award – a hybrid bicycle that uses a regenerative motor to harvest the energy created when braking and release it while cycling, in a manner similar to hybrid cars. Everything, including the battery, is packed in the rear wheel, which becomes a self-contained element that could be retrofitted to most existing bicycles.  The design of the ‘plug and play’ device is the result of a team effort of researchers at MIT’s SENSEable City, including Assaf Biderman and Christine Outram.

Named ‘the Copenhagen Wheel’, the hybrid bike is part of a larger project undertaken by MIT for the city of Copenhagen to implement “…a novel self-organizing smart-tag system that will allow the city’s residents to exchange basic information and share their relative positioning with each other”.  All that in time for the November 2009 U.N. Climate Change Conference.

While ‘the wonder wheel’ might be a good incentive to bring more bikers to the streets of Copenhagen, one wonders how this resolution is going to be applied to the streets of American cities. As Biderman states for psfk.com,

A bicycle is a very efficient machine in itself. So, we weren’t aiming to rethink the bike. It’s not very heavily used in the US. I think primarily because of people like Le Corbusier that designed cities which really have functions spread all throughout the master plan. You live somewhere, you work somewhere else, you have fun in another place, and you go shopping on the other side of town. You’ve got to have a car and the distances are huge. LA is going to be stuck with this kind of plan no matter how green energy becomes. So what we we’re asking is how can we attract more people to biking?

Good question, although one can sense a slight contradiction in Biderman’s statement – accepting the necessity to use a car yet making an effort to attract people to biking. What will it take for the Copenhagen Wheel to attract Americans to bike use in lieu of a car? First, MIT offers bikers the comfort of using less physical effort when biking and pedaling less by generating their own electrical power. Secondly, they connect all bikers through an online social network to share information about their rides. I could see an increased interest in biking in Copenhagen or Amsterdam with an established infrastructure, work environment and tradition all accommodating bikers with their needs, where, one has to admit, the high price tag on cars and even higher one on gas forces people to look for alternative means of transportation. There, the new gadget, easy to retrofit on an existing bike, could trigger a positive reaction on a significant scale.

Whether or not the Copenhagen Wheel can spin success on US streets is another thing. Whether it represents the best of American student design engineering is yet another. It would be interesting to see what the panel of design and engineering professors and professionals took into account when selecting the US winner. On the other hand, a glance at the ten projects listed as finalists might serve as a mirror reflecting on the current state of industrial design education – perhaps lacking a deeper analysis of the needs of a particular society, as well as greater imagination.

SeaKettle by Kimberly Hoffman, US finalist of the 2010 James Dyson International Award / photo courtesy of jamesdysonaward.org

The SeaKettle re-imagines the life raft as a shelter complete with a sea water desalination system that provides enough clean water for up to five stranded passengers per day / photo courtesy of jamesdysonaward.org

What I mean by this is that design is a solution to problem, and even though some problems could be identified as universal, design solutions rarely. The U.S. is not Western Europe, and never will be, regardless of how much progressive thinking designers with green ambitions wish it to be so. Thus, awarding design for America that was intended for Europe might be like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Or not? Given our current behavioral pattern to buy anything with just a hint of technological update, the Copenhagen Wheel might do well translated into sales figures. But the question should be: will it change our habits?

Last year, Yusuf Muhammad and Paul Thomas from the Royal College of Art (UK) were awarded the winners for their design concept of Automist – a fire extinguishing system based on “water-mist” technology found in ships and factories, adapting it to easily retrofit to kitchen taps. What will the Copenhagen Wheel face as competition in the forthcoming international round? Among the remaining 17 national winners, Timothy Whitehead’s idea for a water bottle that uses ultraviolet light to sterilize drinking water anywhere in the world stands out to me. For instance. We will learn more on October 5^th. I’m bidding on Albatros by Noelie Dessy- one of the French design finalists that enhances lives of blind people.

Albatros - French finalist of the 2010 James Dyson Award, photo courtesy of jamesdysonaward.org

Automist - the 2009 James Dyson International Award winner, design by Yusuf Muhammad and Paul Thomas/photo courtesy of jamesdysonaward.org

UK national winner of the 2010 James Dyson International Award, design by Timothy Whitehead / photo courtesy of jamesdysonaward.org

Besides meeting the winner, the Designer Pages’ evening revolved around a lively panel discussion moderated by Katarina Posch, Associate Professor of History of Art and Design at the Pratt Institute. The panelists, including Cara McCarthy – curator of Decorative Arts from the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, Mark McKenna – Design Director of Humanscale, and designer Scott Henderson, tackled issues in the current state of industrial design as well as American design education. The opposing views of Henderson and McKenna, particularly on the aesthetics and function of 21^st century design, kept the attention of the crowd of over 200 design savvy attendants. Too little time, however, too many questions.

‘If at first the idea is not totally absurd then there is no hope for it.’ — Albert Einstein

The panel of design professionals and educators discussing the state of industrial design at Designer Pages' evening in NYC on August 12th 2010 / photo: Josh Wong, courtesy of Designer Pages

Filed under: Design, New York City, Student Design Tagged: | Design, design competition, industrial design, New York City, Students