Design For Manufacture

Tutors: Alex Williams, Jo Barnard & Lea Berger

As manufacturing & distribution technologies rapidly evolve through increasingly open systems, the opportunities for smaller-scale interventions in either global & hyper-local markets abound for both corporate organisations & small entrepreneurs.

Whether prototyping for batch production, developing service touch-points, or adapting manufacturing processes for scale, the DfM platform provokes designers to explore differing conceptions of manufacturing & apply these to their work. The projects are diverse, with typical themes challenging/confronting:

• Longevity & conceptions of sustainability;

• bad domestic habits;

• inattentive eating;

• conceptions of time;

• existing approaches to interactive gameplay;

• the lack of interplay in online concert experiences;

• the laxity of the home-office; &

• the politics of those offices we’ve recently returned to .

In each instance, students aim to develop pre-production prototypes providing proof-of-concept, many taking these ideas forward.