Exphactory
My university chose me and a few other classmates to be representatives and participate in a workshop called L*unchbox. It was a four-day workshop that was held at Mines Saint Etienne, Lyon, France.
The theme for the workshop was Common Grounds which was in the context of the St Etienne Design Biennale. The challenge investigated was the return of production in towns, made possible by digital manufacturing technologies.
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The possibility of bringing manufacturing back into the spaces where we live, work and play have the potential of changing all the layers of our social structure, from the way local economies work, to how we work and produce value for society, to our own human relationships, and to how we express our individuality.
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My team and I proposed the idea of an Exphactory, an experience factory that would give you an escape from work while you're still in the city.
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My role: UX Research and Design Research
CHALLENGE
What will your future neighborhood factory look like?
The project applied different user-centered and design thinking methodologies to understand the users, their needs, in order to give them unique experiences with the help of technology.
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Additionally, scenarios were developed, the feasibility of technology was confirmed with experts, and a business model was created. It highlighted the market gap that this project proposed to solve.
KEY LEARNING
L*unchbox was an introduction to a real-world work environment for me. This brought great value to innovative ideas resulted in brilliant insights. I learned the importance and value of working in a team of people from different approaches at L*unchbox. Having a limited time frame encouraged me to push my limits and use my full potential to solve the problem. This workshop helped to bridge the gap between academic knowledge and industry techniques. My design thinking process and idea generation approach had certainly improved to a great extent by the end of the workshop.
