MDes capstone work won Most Innovative Vision Award by TEI 2022 Student Design Challenge

Congratulations to Miss Xiaoge WANG (MDes (Interaction Design) graduate, 2021) on winning the Most Innovative Vision Award of TEI 2022 Student Design Challenge (SDC)!  The award was given to recognise the achievement of Xiaoge's capstone project “Nature Jar: Design for Facilitating Nature Connectedness and Restoration in Home Scenario” which was supervised by Dr Huaxin Wei. It is a project aiming to use design and technology to gently intervene in people's perceptive and behavioral transformations by encouraging them to notice, value, and have more contact with the nearby nature, as well as deliver nature’s restorative effects. Her submitted extended abstract was published in the ACM TEI'22 Proceedings that marks an international recognition of the high-quality work.   The TEI is ACM's Annual Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction and her presentation to the jury was held online on 16 February 2022. In addition to the award, Xiaoge's project is also winner of the Master of Design Outstanding Final Project Scholarship 2020/21. Link to her publication can be found here.

Environment and Interior Design projects sweep 4 awards from IFI GAP DDA 2022

Congratulations to graduates from our Environment and Interior Design programme on winning awards from the prestigious IFI GAP DDA 2022! These proud young graduates and awards received with their capstone projects are: [Silver Winner] The new type of community by Xiaoqian Ariana Yao (Tutor: Anneli Giencke, 2020) [Bronze Winner] Plastscape by Wing Yee Sardonna Leung (Tutor: Peter Hasdell, 2021) [Bronze Winner] Guerrilla Planter by Cheuk Sum Leung (Tutor: Anneli Giencke, 2020) [Bronze Winner] The Venn by Shuk Man Katie Shiu (Tutor: Anneli Giencke, 2020) Category: STUDENT (Design Projects by Interior Architecture/Design Students and Recent Graduates) The winners swept more than half of the total seven prizes available under the Student Category. It is international recognition to the high quality work of both students and teaching team. The winners were announced during the online ceremony from New York on 22 Feb (HK Time).  

Cross-departmental cooperation gained recognition

An interdisciplinary team formed by our Year 2 Interactive Media students Tiffany Choi and Vivian Yeung and other PolyU students/graduates has been recognised in recent contests and received funding of around HK$25,000 to support further development of their project ‘GoSmart’ that is designed to support the visually impaired for daily commuting. Tiffany and Vivian with three other students from PolyU AMA (Data Science) won the 2nd Runner-up prize from SciTech Challenge 2021 which was themed "technology enabled by voice" and organised by The Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation. The core members from PolyU Design are also awardees of the Good Seed SIE Fund for the team work with other PolyU graduates. The celebration is not only for the prize, but also for interdisciplinary collaboration between students from different departments. It was a great opportunity for the students to understand the process and the journey of design to AI Application and AI Application in the area of Smart City and Spatial Big Data Analytics. Congratulations to the students and let’s look forward to hearing more good news from cross-departmental collaborations!

Students redesigned old shrimp paste shop in Tai O

A team of Environment and Interior Design students have joined the “Tai O Let's Go Cultural Festival” to renovate a local shrimp paste shop and design equipment for it. The project aims to help the old store to tell its very unique story to the public while adding new elements to local environment. Led by Mr Michael Chan, Senior Teaching Fellow of PolyU Design, the team started from taking time to build relations and trust with the shop owners, then managed to design for their needs. Deliverables included an eye-catching installation that helped refreshing the exterior of shop with a long history. The Festival was organised by The Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups (HKFYG) in partnership with the Tai O Cultural Association last December to promote local tourism and culture of the traditional fishermen’s village. Among a few spotlight activities of the Festival, “Tai O Stores Go!” that our design students participated involved 70 design students guided by designers from the Hong Kong Interior Design Association to reimagine, redesign and refurbish ten old stores in a melody of traditional and creative components. In the media: 卓閱旅途——大澳Let's Go文化節 (頭條日報 2021-12-23)

Cross-departmental cooperation gained recognition

We are excited to announce that Dr Shih Yi-teng, Assistant Professor of PolyU Design is recently awarded a funding from the one-off Collaborative Research Fund (CRF) COVID-19 and Novel Infectious Diseases (NIR) Research Exercise for an amount of HK$2.78 million. The funding provides great opportunities for Dr Shih as project leader to work with other universities' researchers. The project is named “The Effect of Distance Design Collaboration Necessitated by COVID-19 on Brain Synchronicity in Teams Compared to Co-Located Design Collaboration” and will last for three years.  This timely study examines changes in design behaviour (e.g., body language, thinking patterns, etc.) of design teams working remotely during COVID-19. The project outcomes are expected to contribute to academia and industry in the field of design.   The CRF is under government’s Research Grants Council (RGC) and supports Research Equipment and Research Projects for acquisition of major research facilities or equipment, and promoting group research across disciplines respectively.

Winners of HSBC Greater Bay Area (Hong Kong) Scholarship 2020/21 announced

Sharon Choi Yuet-sum, Year-4 student of BA (Hons) in Communication Design has been awarded HSBC Greater Bay Area (Hong Kong) Scholarship 2020/21 with other two PolyU students. The scholarship was launched by The Hongkong Bank Foundation to support undergraduates’ studies, internships or activities that can help fulfil their career aspirations in the Greater Bay Area (GBA). Each scholarship recipient was awarded HK$80,000 as an endorsement of their career development plans in the GBA. Sharon aspired to rebrand the GBA’s urban identity with interesting methods such as using 3D animation in the future. Other awardees of PolyU are students from BEng (Hons) in Electronic and Information Engineering and BA (Hons) in Social Policy and Administration.

PolyU designs ergonomic furniture to help kids in sub-divided flats

PolyU’s Jockey Club Design Institute for Social Innovation (JCDISI), in partnership with the School of Design, the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the School of Optometry, has designed a set of tailor-made ergonomic furniture for underprivileged children living in subdivided flats. The furniture set, including a table, chairs, stools, reading boards, leg rests and cushions, will be issued to 2,000 families starting from August, supported by Hongkong Land HOME FUND – a fund established in November 2020 to empower the younger generation, promote social inclusion and assist those facing housing-related challenges in Hong Kong.  “Thanks to HOME FUND, we have been able to refine the prototype furniture and produce an ergonomically designed set of furniture to enhance the development of children living in sub-divided units,” said Kar-Kan Ling, Director of DISI. “Due to limited space and natural light, children living in sub-divided units are prone to health issues, including eyesight and spinal problems, that can affect their academic performance. This set of furniture brings together the expertise of design, biomedical engineering, optometry and allied health specialists to improve the children’s learning development.” To learn more about this meaningful collaboration, please take a look at the recent news reports here (Pulse@PolyU, Jan 2022).

Students to promote carbon reduction through animation production

Following last year’s success, our collaborative project with The Hong Kong and China Gas Company Limited (Towngas) to promote the awareness of Environment, Social and Governance (ESG)  among school kids has returned.  This year, the team from BA(Hons) in Digital Media created an animation ‘Mission to Decarbonisation’ featuring a team of heroes which fights to eliminate 'carbon monsters'. It also includes a quiz designed to engage viewers to roll up their sleeves for carbon reduction missions.  Team members are: HO Man Ching Mandy 何敏菁 HONG Ka Lok Kenny 洪嘉樂 KO Hiu Yee Teresa 高曉儀 LEE Wing Lam Winnie 李泳霖 ONG Ching Yi Jenny 王靜兒 WONG Wing Tung Suki 黃穎彤 Tutor: Step Cheung Watch now: Green Flame: Greenspiration Vids for Caring Kids | Mission to Decarbonisation   綠火焰計劃 — 愛．綠．識「童」學天地｜《減碳任務》(Chinese Version 中文版) More about the project>> Facebook Page of Towngas>>

Six Environment and Interior Design projects are IFI GAP 2022 Finalists

We are proudly announcing that six capstone projects from recent cohorts of BA(Hons) in Environment and Interior Design are shortlisted for the International Federation of Interior Architects/Designers (IFI) Design Distinction Award 2022. These projects are: Category: STUDENT (Design Projects by Interior Architecture/Design Students and Recent Graduates) Guerrilla Planter by Cheuk Sum Leung (Tutor: Anneli Giencke, 2020) Plastscape by Wing Yee Sardonna Leung  (Tutor: Peter Hasdell, 2021) Re- Re drawing Escher by Aigner Ngai (Tutor: Gerhard Bruyns, 2021) The Venn by Shuk Man Katie Shiu (Tutor: Anneli Giencke, 2020) The new type of community by Xiaoqian Ariana Yao (Tutor: Anneli Giencke, 2020) The Utopian Community by Cho Yiu, Yoyo Wong (Tutor: Peter Hasdell, 2020) The Award has received a record-breaking number of submissions for all categories this year - 640 projects from 51 countries across the world. A total of 156 projects were shortlisted across 10 categories – from these, one Gold winner, two Silver winners and five Bronze winners is crowned in each category. Among the 18 shortlisted projects in the student category, there are 6 projects from SD. Congratulations to the team, and we look forward to the final results that will be announced in February!

Creativity, Compassion and Passion – the winning formula for start-ups

Read the inspiring story of setting up a start-up company Spaceship shared by co-founders Chilam Lam and Stanley Wong on this month’s PolyU InnoHub enewsletter (December Updates by PolyU InnoHub). Among these passionate young alumni of PolyU, Stanley is graduate of our MSc in Multimedia and Entertainment Technology programme in 2009. Full story>>