Stride
An interactive environment.
‘Play’, often referred to as the antagonist of work, is the perfect activity to stimulate energy, enthusiasm and creativity in the office
Designing for KLM
Dutch airline company KLM was seeking new ways to integrate design into their Schipol Airport office. Sitting for most of the day can become unproductive, leading to fatigue, stress and lethargy.
Timeline: 8 Weeks - Dec 2019- Jan 2020
Role: Lead Designer
Team: Kevin van der Lans, Bianca Lieu, Edward Na, Laura Ottevanger, Julia Rademaker, Marijn Roelvink, Luuk Streefkerk
Ideation
In the ideation phase, we spent a lot of time drinking coffee and brainstorming. We generated ideas through quick sketch exercises, followed by mapping our ideas. We sought to create an interactive sculpture for adults that invoked play and energised the user. This is where the skeletons of Stride began.
Prototyping
Using scaffolding beams and MDF scraps, we began to build the skeletons of our sculpture. As the designer on the team, I took charge of the overall aesthetic of this interactive sculpture.
In the development phase, I folded paper to generate ideas on the step caps to encase our Arduinos and wiring. From there, I began to laser cut plastic sheets to determine the best pattern for our origami bulb cover.
User Testing
In the test phase, we found that as you stepped through the playground, having the steps light up did very little for our users as they could not see their steps light up.
As a result, we decided to incorporate a soundscape and interactive games into our code, such as ‘Chase the Step’, which prompted you to follow the steps as they lit up.
Stride
This was such a fun project to be a part of. I was lucky to work in such a diverse team, collaborating with mechanical engineers, aerospace engineers, computer scientists and fellow industrial designers. We pulled on each other’s strengths and created a successful interactive environment.
