Exploring Eindhoven
Power to the People
During the half year project Exploring Interactions, I analysed and designed interactions. Interactions are the way people use, understand and experience products and situations. I explored the interactions taking place in the domain of Power to the People. The exact purpose of my exploration is to gain insights on interactions within the context: citizens of the city centre of Eindhoven.
My personal motivation was created by chatting with my friends and family that are living in Eindhoven. I hear a lot of good stories about things that have been changed over the years, but also a lot of complaints. Eindhoven is my hometown and every time I visited it, it surprises me positively. I want to share this positive experience with the people that live in the city centre by creating an interaction idea so people connect to the city again. My ultimate goal was to change the citizens’ view on Eindhoven. For this project I decided to pursue the effect to influence everyday thoughts about Eindhoven by its citizens in a positive way. Eindhoven has more to offer than thought of at first. By pointing that out, the view on Eindhoven might change even if it is just for a second.
Exploring History
Dutch Design Week 
Eindhoven Culinair
Eindhoven is known for its light design and technology since Philips set ground in the city in 1891. After DAF went bankrupt and Philips reorganized itself by moving to Amsterdam in 1990, the citizens of Eindhoven thought they were doomed. Though, the municipality looked for a new way of collaboration between the authorities, research centres and companies. This led to the introduction of Stichting Brainport in 2005 which keeps growing every year.
Today, Philips is not situated in the centre anymore but the village-spirit remained. The agricultural background still makes people have the concise reasoning. You notice this in the streets where people greet each other and give each other their opinion easily, but also in business life.
Eindhoven has transformed itself from an industrial town into a place where technology, design and knowledge are the thriving force. The Intelligent Community Forum Foundation (ICFF, New York) named Eindhoven ‘smartest region of the world’ in 2011, which attract people from all over the world. It is a profound bases for innovation, and in order to communicate the outcome of such innovations, the Dutch Design Week is organized annually.
This leaves the city divided into Eindhoven: the known and Eindhoven: the brand.
Context Mapping
Citizens of Eindhoven
With use of context mapping, interviews and analysing people’s behaviour in Eindhoven I was able to map the opinions and emotions they have concerning their city. A lot of the citizens emotions is connected to change which is connected to misfortune, unexpected, division, innovative and broad interest. The municipality focuses more on the new way of thinking rather than the old. This leaves a general feeling of desperation and frustration. The municipality did recently stop tearing down historical meaningful buildings. Instead, they use these to place new companies, catering industries and expositions in.
Also the things that are interesting and surprising are too far apart, too much concealed and do not connect with each other. It is hard to get from one place to another. Another big part of the participants reactions is the feeling of belonging which is connected to preservation and home. The innovative way of thinking attracts creative people to the city, but once there they are confronted with the just act normal thought. The other way around are people that have been living there and are set with this act normal way of thinking and they cannot keep up with the fast innovative way of thinking of the municipality. It does not mix and they hardly connect.
Context Mapping Toolkit 
Creative Session
Final Design
What do you see?
I used the research in the making of prototypes which I tested in the field. Walking through several iterations I created my final design. The model makes people able to focus on details in a certain context. To make a 360 degree view possible and provide easy access, the model had to become rather big [2.50 meters].
The movement is designed to be as graceful as the movement of a ballet dancer as respect to the environment. Though, the used material metal makes it look robust which fits perfectly with the industrial look of Eindhoven.
The interaction people had with the design was as I had seen before during other iterations. People first look for something familiar, but once engaging in the opportunity of finding something new, they all soon found something different they had not seen before. As in a treasure hunt, finding what they personally thought was the hidden gem, gave them a feeling of joy and pride.
