PolyU Design and Royal College of Art (UK) co-organised workshop on Human-Centred AI Design Methods

Workshop on Human-Centred AI Design Methods to Understand “Intelligent Systems Design empowered by Multisensory Experiences with Textiles” has been successfully held in collaboration between our MDes Intelligent System Design (ISD) programme and the Royal College of Art, UK (RCA).

Co-organising the workshop were Leader of the ISD programme and the Lab Studies subject (Intelligent Systems Construction), Prof. Stephen J. Wang, and RCA’s Textile MA tutor, Dr Elif Ozden Yenigun, and Research Associate Ms Lissy Hatfield. This workshop was to achieve the aims of co-generating tactile-based sensorial data for AI design tools and delivering the material centric design workshop to understand embodied ad tacit knowledge of the textile world.

Benefiting from the unique nature of ISD “Lab Studies” subjects, the purpose of the workshop was to understand human sensory experiences of textile materials, allowing students to explore the relationships between physical properties and characteristics and the subjective assessment of materials through the evaluation of textiles based on a range of physical gestures and actions that human adopted. 

Guided by such experience, the ISD students brainstormed and developed ideas in groups around human-robot collaboration contributing to textile assessment at the end of the workshop.

PolyU School of Design’s Intelligent Systems Design (MDes) programme highly recognises data and intelligence-related technologies as critical components in nowadays’ industry and society. To develop students’ future-shaping creative design vision using the intelligent system, the transdisciplinary workshop, as a part of the ISD’s “Lab Studies: Intelligent Systems Construction” subject, has provided students with an opportunity to be involved in real-world research projects.

Prof. Stephen J. Wang emphasised that “this workshop is well aligned with ISD’s vision ‘to educate a new type of designer, one that has an in-depth understanding of data and intelligent technologies, system-focused thinking, innovative design skills, and engineering or technology mastery’. We should especially thank AiDLab management team, Research Associate Mr Zhengtao Ma, RCA Textile Circularity Centre’s Dr Chipp Jansen, and PhD students of PolyU Design Ms Yaqi Zhang and Ms Cong Fang for their assistance in the workshop’s preparation and operation.”