Instructions: Reflect on your engagement with d.studio concepts, techniques and readings. Share your personal learning evolution over the past 10 weeks. Clearly communicate in your post and add links and/or rich media to support your prose.

Before the 10 weeks in Design Studio, I have little knowledge about the power of design and how it integrates into our lives. However, I have always been interested in design and have little idea on where to start. I am glad I enrolled in design studio.

Throughout the 10 weeks, our class have touched on topics such as the creativity, six thinking hats, business model canvas. It provided me a comprehensive understanding from the theory to the application of design.

One of the most interesting concept that we applied repeatedly is prototyping. In class, we learn that we should research and observe before we move on to the prototype. However, in design studio, I learn that sometimes it is better to just let your hands do the work and see what happens afterwards. Prototyping can be just base on your intuition and what you think it’s right. More often than not, I learn significantly faster when I prototype than thinking in my head.

The best example is the prototyping exercise we had against rain. We decided that we want to protect street food from rain. While our teammates all have good ideas on how to do it, the best way to prove our concept is simply make it happen. When we use Lego to build the bracelet to keep the shelter standing on our wrist, we realize that it is physically too heavy. There is too much excess material we don’t need. It doesn’t hold up properly. This inspired of us another way to build the same product: we don’t need a bracelet to hold  the shield. When we are holding, for example, the hot dog in our hands, we can implement the rain shield in to something that we can just flip open and hold it in our hands without much disruption to eating.

This inspiration significantly reduced the amount of cost associated with building the product, less material and less time consumed.

Further more, the two hands-on project provided me valuable experience in the future. I was able to use Business Model Canvas on an existing business and being able to bring some creative thinking strategy to make businesses greener and more sustainable. This is particular obvious when we are doing Pacific Arbour case.

When we are visiting the chef, we realize that he has a kitchen with the latest and greatest equipment to save energy and cost. We also noticed Pacific Arbour did a lot of work in making their business greener. Many times we ran into dead ends and believe there isn’t any recommendation we can make to further improve their business. We could have stopped there and give up. However, holding ourselves from jumping into the conclusion of failure. We dig deeper into our findings and notice that there are opportunities to communicate across different residences. This is a major change on how to build residences. Many people think that residence is a stand alone structure all by itself. However, given Pacific Arbour’s plan to grow and expand in BC, it is extremely benefit to use this network to improve their processes and provide a more congruent retirement residence experience.

There are many things I learn in design studio: from teamwork to individual thinking process, from business models to actual implementation. These are only highlights on the lessons in this class.