Robots nowadays can walk, see and some do even feel emotions.

At the same time, humans are urging to become more of a robot, wanting to able to fully control and even program their bodies. In this new concept of the Human known as Transhumanism, or Human+, the aim is to enhance our psychological capacities and removing our human limitations through manipulating our bodies in different ways.

Although most humans still find that idea disturbing, we do share more “robotic” habits than ever before. We need batteries to be able to communicate, to be entertained and quite frankly: to live.

While we have trained ourselves to sniff out any nearby electrical outlet, we are missing out on a human source of energy that is literally right under our noses: the Breath.

Can we use a wasted human source to feed our high-tech needs? Why not use that vital flow of air that is constantly going to waste, to also cover our electrical needs?

Terminal 1 is “Food for thought”, a Speculative Design project based on Transhumanism research and then developed into a commercial product.

Analyzing their existing toolkit FIXA, we noted that the tools were placed tightly to one another and snapped into slick cavities to minimize volume. The tools were however quite difficult to take out from the packaging, and the transparent plastic lid easily cracked.

BÅLSTA is a multifaceted toolbox concept that questions the common norms of tool storage and handling. The core of BÅLSTA is a magnetic tool belt, making the tools easy to grab, put back and change positions. When not clipped onto your waistband, the belt is easily attached to the semi-rigid sheet that folds into two different positions: one for storage and transportation and one for exposing the tools as a stand. If not folded, the sheet with the attached toolbelt can be hung as a practical tool wall.
BÅLSTA is versatile while staying simple, and in combination with its slick, including design it would be a natural addition to IKEA’s product line, and to any household. Being handy has never been easier!

Main Game Concept: Making people move
1. Players are divided into two teams: Blue/Orange
2. They then hide the other team’s ‘Blips’ (treasures) within the decided play area.
3. The hunt begins! The team that finds all their ‘Blips’ first have won.

So what distinguishes Blip from a traditional treasure hunt? The Blips of course! They are the objects you search for and by transmitting a signal to your team, they guide you towards them. The Blips’ signals are received by special bracelets that all players wear, and they have two functions: to vibrate when the wearer is close to one of their blips, and to give important information about the progress of the game. When finding one of your blips, pressing its button triggers its light to blink and then go solid (in your team’s color) while your bracelet adds it to the tally. Way to go! Then the search continues for the remaining blips! In this way we have used modern technology to create a game with an app, but instead of having the focus on the screen the player instead interacts meaningfully with his or her environment.

Bracelet Design 
Because the game is team-based, bars of colored light made sense as a way to display victory progress (which team has collected more hidden objects, Blips). Additionally, the bracelet would function as a timer during a game and a watch the rest of the time.

Blip Design 
The blips are meant to be simple, durable, and easy to hide, so the final form is a slightly dome-shaped, sleek puck with an integrated elastic band for maximum hide-ability. They are white and stylish with a satisfying interaction in the form of a light emitting button on the top.

App 
The app is a functional tool tying all of Blip’s elements together. The bracelets are synced to the app, which in turn allows players to customize the rules of each game: tweak sensitivities, adjust timers, play area etc. The app can also store game statistics!

Identity
Blip itself is a word that comes from sonar and radar imaging, as in a “blip on the radar,” meaning a detected object. It’s short, easy to remember, and evocative of signal and sound. Orange and teal were natural choices for team colors, since they are complementary and un-gendered, so they quickly became our brand colors as well. The Blip logo uses a circular form to refer visually to our Blips, with playful logotype that deliberately hides the ‘i’.

Design Team: Cristian Paredes, Prak Piakot, Timothy Plummer, Isaac Soler, Liisa Widstrand.

The brief
Redesign an interior space at Passeig de Gràcia, Barcelona

Concept
Accopmanied Solitude is an adaption to the 21st century lifestyle: liking to be alone without feeling alone.

Mission: To reinforce the individuality within a group environment.

The Beach Towel is the metaphor of our concept: A towel on the beach marks your private space, it is individual and personal while you are still connected to the surrounding.

How does the service work
Through an App the customer books an available space by date and time, and is then allowed to customize the space by choosing and placing out furniture in the space selected. When arriving at your booked time, you pay the rent and the staff will lead you to your private space furnitured in your style.

How does the space work
Each rentable space is an elevator in itself. When the space is to be prepared for a client, it descends to floor -1 where the staff is waiting to place out the customer’s chosen furniture. When done, the space rises to ground floor level again.

The brief
Detect, analyze and redesign a storage problem.

Chosen focus
Football training material.
Football training almost always include the use of a lot of equipment and tools, like cones and sticks. There is always a struggle to transport the materials to and from the training area from the storage place, both coaches and players must carry the material. The material also take a lot of space to store, and therefore I have looked into the ways to simplify the storage of equipment and the transport of equipment to and from the training field.

Product Solution
I thought about how to find a way how to make tidying up a playful activity. I analyzed the list of equipment to see how I could reduce their volume and started simplifying the list of equipment actually needed. I saw that for example that the ladder normally put on the ground, could be replaced by normal sticks placed with the same distance, and that the obstacle jumps could be build out of sticks carried by two cones. Finally, I collected all the material in a big wheel to make it easier to move, and inside the cones and sticks are clamped to the walls while the balls tumble around freely in the middle, with the side holes shut by nets.

Book layout design for Wild Wonders of China , displaying the images from their photo mission to Tangjiahe Natural Nature Reserve.

→ Full book PDF here ←

This project might be more artisanal than conceptual, however, the hands do not work without the mind and neither do ideas appear without a previous conceptual development.. This story started with a fellow exchange student from the Netherlands, Michiel Van Gageldonk, during our autumn at Konstfack University in Sweden. The last weekend before we both returned to our home countries, we thought we had to do something with the scrap pieces of material that we had collected during our stay.

We had some left-over birch and walnut, as well as some pipes of steel, and that Saturday we decided to create something that represented how we first had met: over a game of Chess.

Here is the video of the making.

This is a project made together with the company Ericsson, during my time as an exchange student in Sweden. Today, a large part of the company’s business consists of producing internet antennas used all over the world. My project consisted of studying the guidelines of the company as well as their values, and to later develop a concept of a new Ericsson antenna (PICO RBS) for 2020.

I want my design to reduce the space between Ericsson and their clients, and to make the user conscious of who is the actual provider. This, by creating a product where the user can easily see the connection to the products brand logo. The conceptual development is embodied in the following MindMap.

A family of spice dispensers in glass, complementing the Mediterranean cuisine.
The aim of this project was to develop a series of glass containers that were supposed to contain three different typical Mediterranean aliments. After some research we identified three typically Mediterranean food toppings: grated parmesan cheese, oregano and spicy olive oil.

The meals are a ritual and the tool should express the artisan feeling of the Mediterranean.
This family of containers have been designed for these three products, analyzing the hand gestures and movements that are used when traditionally serving the them.

The final shapes of the product family therefore received an ergonomic shape that is both intuitive and simple. Being made out of glass, the containers do not only preserve the qualities of the food but do also have a Mediterranean connection. We have used non-colored glass and played with the contrast of a shiny versus frosted finish – bringing your thoughts to round pieces of glass and wood washed up on mediterranean beaches after years and years of tumbling around in the shoreline waters.

Design Team: Ona Bombí, Júlia Ducat, Cristian Paredes, David Palomar.

Brief
Increase the value of a cheap, everyday product by rebranding it.

Spank-me
SPANK ME is a product that combines the concept of eating, licking, food… with BDSM. In itself the original object was a spatula, a cooking tool that can be used for turning burgers on a grill or smothering chocolate on a cake. In order to increase its value, we thought that giving it an extra attribute could bring it into another market where it could be sold for more. This thought developed into a kinky advertising campaign where we decided to promote the spatula for spanking purposes.

We have tried to bring this concept to the extreme and used the fact that people are likely to have had spanking fantasies of some kind. From the communication point of view, we chose the meat, the flesh because it effortlessly combines eating with flesh (which is essentially what is being spanked during this act). Our tagline sums that up with the sentence: “Honey, this isn’t for the barbecue. SPANK-ME.” And in addition SPANK-ME is the name of the new product.

Target: Kinky Divorcés
Distribution channels: Erotic shop
Original price: 1,20€
Actual price: 12 €

Was a challenge to create a lamp which was totally recyclable and that would fit in an ephemeral environment. The main idea was to make the lamp express ephemerality, which to me can be defined as a process in motion during a short, specific amount of time. I thought that a clear way to represent Time, was to express the process of deterioration. I also wanted to involve Nature in this project because it is a place where ephemeral processes is happening everywhere, all the time.

Also connecting this lamp concept to its history, I chose to work with wax as it was one of the earliest materials used in lighting, but also because different types of waxes are also naturally created in nature. Bees, for example, create wax and use it to build their hexagonal cells within their beehive.

Design Team: Oriol Gener, Eloi Masdeu, Victor Pla and Cristian Paredes.