Created for the Candle Smart Home project initiated by Tijmen Schep, these prototypes imagine new typologies of smart-home devices designed through consideration of a user’s privacy. Each device integrates elements that propose new approaches to privacy through everyday objects: from mechanical switches that reveal when a device is remotely accessed, to settings which allow the user to generate ‘fake’ data to mask behaviors. The series consists of a thermostat, a carbon sensor, a smart-home hub, an enegy-use monitor, and the anemone: a device that physically disconnects the internet connection entering the home.

A “Do-It-Yourself” mentality is emerging in the field of healthcare. On one hand, this trend could give patients and practitioners increased agency to understand, manage, and take control of their individual needs and situations. Simultaneously, it creates an increasingly complex set of relationships in which patients, healthcare professionals, activists, software companies, and retailers may all have very different stakes in, and definitions of DIY healthcare. Data and Devices (2018) consists of a trio which question and suggest alternatives within the field of “Do-It-Yourself” healthcare. Inspired by implanted pacemaker monitoring systems which rely on a complex, and often hidden, system of network-communication, these devices presents a situation in which the user is in control of collected data: A ‘monitor’ provides the choice whether or not the data it collects is shared, a stand-alone ‘server’ aggregates the data users choose to share, and ‘reporter’ gives tangible feedback on the information.

A Commonplace Book (2018) is an installation in which visitors are invited to compile fragments of research into blank notebooks. Each table in the installation displays a time-related object and is integrated with a with custom drawing machine which reproduces related experts, drawings, and fragments of research. The result is a series of individually-published personal books that explore our perception and understanding of time. Produced in collaboration with Commonplace Studio and Tim Knapen, and based on the content of the Z33 research group Studio Time.

Photographs (c) studio chloki

Cloning Objects presents an alternative scenario in which a collection of products are each embedded with all of the information needed for their own reproduction. Scanning the object with a software interface allows a user to “inspect” the components of an object, revealing the digital 3D-definition, files for reproduction with digital fabrication tools, information and schematics for electronic components, and the source-code for any software used to control the object.

Distributing this information within the objects allows them to be reproduced and distributed without a structured, formal network. The autonomous objects and their components are made accessible on an individual level, and can be freely shared, modified, and redistributed.

Cloning objects is made in collaboration with Leonaro Amico, Tilen Sepič , and Thibault Brevet. It is an extension of the Hacking Households project originally presented at BIO 50. The project was made possible with support from Timelab and the Creative Industries Fund NL.

Producing even relatively simple objects often requires combining existing components that vary in terms of local sources, standards, and availability. The PS Desklamp (2014) is based on a set of 3D-printed components which have the ability to adapt to the dimensions of standard construction materials: measurements which are readily available from the databases maintained by the material suppliers. The balanced-arm lamps based can be constructed from a variety of locally available materials: from wooden beams to metal pipes. Parametric design software allows the 3D-printable components to be customized to fit the chosen construction material and standard lightbulb socket.

What if everyday objects were produced the way open source software is developed?

Realized for the BIO 50 Biennial of Design in Slovenia, Hacking Households (2014) is a collaborative research in developing an ecosystem of evolving objects that are designed, developed, and produced democratically within open communities. Produced in collaboration with Tilen Sepic, Leonardo Amico, Thibault Brevet, Coralie Gourguechon, and Jure Martinec, Nataša Muševic

Video. 50.bio.si/en

Transparent Tools is a family of household appliances that presents a future scenario in which users are actively involved in producing, repairing, and modifying their own products. By using 3D printed, CNC manufactured, and standard components, the resulting machines can be reproduced one-at-a-time rather than on the scale of mass production. The family of appliances consists of a toaster, a motorized grinder, an electric kettle and a vacuum cleaner.

Components of the original family of machines are changed and expanded to create a series of variations: an industrial-size toaster and an improvised vacuum built around a plastic thermos.

The OS WaterBoiler is an appliance designed for the OpenStructures modular building system. Straightforward design principles and standard components are utilized to create an understandable appliance that can be disassembled, repaired, and modified.

Designed in collaboration with Thomas Lommée for OpenStructures.