DesignAndHarvestingConclusions

Intro

This research covered many aspects of Design in relation to Energy Harvesting. The idea that products, fashion architecture becomes independent of external energy is very attractive. In a layered structure of energy harvesting it should become realizable in the future. With layered structure is meant a combination of sources (wind, solar etc) and storage, from very small to local scale. Added to this should be a careful choice of interactivity and availability of the behavior.

Bachelor

The research question was to investigate if some notion of energy harvesting is important for students of the WdKA. In practice the demands in the last year of the study from the domain of specialisation (eg product design, spatial design, fashion) are already very high. The graduation proposals are becoming more and more interactive, which means energy and electricity is needed. Normally either the mains (220V) or batteries are used. If "saving energy" is not a main topic of the graduation proposal, making the final design independent of external energy by energy harvesting is an added demand.
Sometimes it is possible to make use of energy harvesting, but for most projects this would mean an enormous complication of the final project in technical aspects, which are not the prime focus of the WdKA design studies.

Comparison with MA projects

Comparing the WdKA bachelor project with MA projects presented at DDW2014, like Solly of Roes, or the Nightlight of ... it can be perceived that even for MA students energy harvesting is a difficult added aspect. Solly for example is not optimized in using energy. In a conversation with the designer Roes he acknolegded this and told me he will ask a technical expert for this.