Designer | EPFL Graph Search

Un designer ([dizajnəʁ]), parfois francisé en designeur (féminin designeuse), est un professionnel qui conçoit un produit en harmonisant les critères esthétiques et fonctionnels de celui-ci. Le designer peut être spécialisé (design d'espace, design de produits, design graphique) ou pluridisciplinaire (design signalétique, design de services). Il travaille souvent en collaboration avec des spécialistes d'autres disciplines, pour analyser et résoudre les problèmes soulevés par un projet. Il est l'interface entre les services commerciaux et les services de fabrication. Domaines Un designer apporte des solutions dans tous les secteurs (énergie, commerce, mobilité, alimentation, éducation, santé, écologie, culture). Certains designers sont pluridisciplinaires, d'autres sont spécialisés dans un domaine spécifique (espaces, messages, produits). Les disciplines du design couvrant plusieurs secteurs d'activité sont le design thinking, le design collaboratif, le design de servic

Typologie des écoles primaires en Suisse de 1945 à 2015 et stratégies d'éclairage naturel

Jean-Denis Bernard Marie Ghislain Thiry

Following the path initiated by Britain and the United States, where the evolution of education and the importance of the architecture of schools were debated vigorously by school boards, and mainly under the influence of Germany and the Netherlands, Switzerland has gradually become a benchmark in Europe and worldwide in terms of school construction. This abundance of expertise revealed itself especially after the Second World War with the emergence of a constructive quality concerned with environmental aspects, which incorporated the needs involved in children's education and a proper amount of natural light for classrooms. But since the beginning of the 21st century, designers have not payed so much attention to sunlight or to the orientation of schools, and have instead focused on creating more versatile and scalable learning spaces, even though much of the research done in the field points to the significance of the controlled usage of daylight showing also the positive impact on the well-being of the pupils. Thus, it seems necessary again to make designers more aware of the use of effective daylighting strategies, and to convince them to stop relying on oftentimes permanent artificial lighting at substantial energy costs. Based on a desire to combine a theoretical and historical approach with a technical one to assess the level of performance of daylight in teaching spaces, the thesis is organized in two successive and interdependent parts. The first part aims to give an overview of the typological evolution of primary schools and their daylighting strategies implemented in Switzerland from 1945 to 2015. To this end, a broad survey of schools featured in four major architectural journals was conducted, namely: Werk, Bauen + Wohnen; L'Architecture d'aujourd'hui; Techniques & Architecture; The Architectural Review. The development of the formal, constructive and distributive characteristics of the projects was analyzed and compared with the daylighting strategies of class units, while demonstrating the significant impact of foreign influences on Swiss construction. Four major school « types » were identified from a total of 332 schools studied, that are, the pavilion type, the articulated type, the modular type, and the monoblock type. We then selected school models representative of the types of schools built most frequently in Switzerland and their associated daylighting strategies. The second part offers an analysis of the daylighting impact on selected schools for the purpose of quantifying the different levels of illumination, and studying the resulting lighting ambiances. To this end, several in situ measurement campaigns were undertaken applying a systematic protocol. Through iterative variation of different parameters of the modeled class units, the objective is then to identify architectural models and design principles that provide appropriate levels of illumination for students, while comparing the different school types from our initial theoretical survey. In addition to retracing the typological evolution of 70 years of school construction in Switzerland in terms of the original perspective on daylighting, this research aims to provide a collection of examples of good architectural practices, as well as objective criticism of the daylighting strategies of Swiss schools and related literature, for the purpose of having a positive influence on decisions regarding the design of the schools of tomorrow.

EPFL2019

Policy-based Exploration of Equilibrium Representations (PEER): A topology grammar for generative conceptual structural design

Ioannis Mirtsopoulos

Design exploration is a creative process that consists of the incremental generation of design candidates. Supported by digital means or not, the process handles the ill-structured nature of design and allows creativity to flourish through diversity of design candidates. This research proposes a design framework for the generation of variant bar network topologies in static equi-librium which facilitates the conceptual structural design exploration. Named PEER (Policy-based Exploration of Equilibrium Representations) the framework:(-)incrementally grows and transforms networks of bars within specified geometric do-mains(-)maintains their static equilibrium at every intermediate transformation step(-)is built around a parametric policy - a course of actions - controlled by a choice of four explicit or abstract rules(-)is not constrained to precedent or recursing topologies and/or geometries.Structural design space exploration is achieved through the generation of schematic, early-stage static equilibrium representations which are indicative, but not deemed optimized, force flows. As such, they are valuable as first design inspirations, prior to comprehensive structural analyses and form refinement. The transformation policy operates on given loads, is free from maximum valency limitations and unbound to specific topologies and geometries. On the contrary, the network's topology is not known a priori, but it is defined during the decision-making design process and constitutes the main output of the exploratory process. PEER transforms interim networks of bars, whilst the network maintains static equilibrium at every transformation step. Precisely, each transformation results in the introduction of a new node, some bar elements in tension and/or compression and a few interim internal forces. The number of interim forces decreases while the number of bars increases and the entire process ends when no interim force exists anymore, which is always achievable due to the retention of static equilibrium throughout.Contrary to other approaches and thanks to the incremental growth of topologies, PEER opens the generative design black box. While the process can be fully automated, it also lets the de-signer interrupt, redirect, or backtrack to previous transformations, at every intermediate step of the transformative process. Additional control is granted to the designer through the combinato-rial choice of rules.The genetic algorithm's stochastic nature matches well with the concept of exploration and the provision of multiple design alternatives. The design space exploration capability of the present-ed workflow is therefore further augmented by coupling it with interactive genetic algorithms, operating for the course of a single, or multiple, policy-based transformation(s). Via the interac-tive user interface, the designer selects the mutation and crossover parents based on aesthetic or performance criteria - although optimization is out of the research scope - and steers the explora-tion process according to personal preferences. Policy-based incremental design and interactive genetic algorithms can provide designers with infinite alternative design candidates. Consequently, they efficiently boost design space explora-tion, and their combination ultimately provides a new design workflow for conceptual structural design. Its capacity to unveil numerous, unprecedented, maybe unexpected, but statically valid, forms is illustrated.

EPFL2022

Designing modeling notations readers understand

George Popescu

[Context] IT modelers create models to communicate their conceptualization of an organization and to facilitate the collaboration between business and IT people. The story they convey in their models is how the corporate IT systems fulfill the business peopleâs needs. The business people who must validate these models often have no IT background. Therefore, IT modelers need to create models that non-IT individuals understand. [Motivation and Problem] We explore the understanding of models created with IT notations by non-IT individuals. We enable IT modelers to create models such that non-IT readers can understand. We also enable IT notation designers to design notations that help modelers to create models that non-IT readers can understand. [Idea and Results] We perform an explorative qualitative case-study for two modeling notations, SEAM and i*, by using two cases: car-maintenance service and meeting scheduler, in order to investigate how readers interpret models. Readers evaluate our models and identify the elements that are difficult to comprehend. We create improved models by making these elements easier to comprehend, so that readers understand the modelerâs story. We reduce the misalignment between the modelerâs story and the readersâ perceptions of this story. We improve models without changing the identity of the underlying notation. [Contributions] Our contributions address modelers and designers of IT notations. For IT modelers, such as IT architects, service designers, and consultants, using IT notations (e.g., UML, BPMN, ArchiMate), this research provides the means necessary to create models so that readers, unfamiliar with the notation, understand. We recommend to modelers to model: (i) the relation with reality, by focusing on the readersâ conceptualizations, (ii) the rationale, by using the questions, options, criteria and their assessment, and (iii) the story, by using story-phases: context, conflict, climax and closure. In addition, we provide them with a modeling process for creating models. For designers of IT notations, this research provides the means necessary to design notations. We recommend to designers to design: (i) the relation with reality, by identifying implicit elements in the modeling notation by evaluating readersâ understanding of what elements represent, (ii) the rationale, by using visual cues to guide readersâ understanding of the problem, and (iii) the story, by creating models in which different stories are told to elicit readersâ understanding of what happens in the model. In addition, we provide them with a design process for designing notations.

EPFL2016