Sears: Growth as reuse

Sears Holdings is converting old Sears and Kmart properties into much needed data storage centers.

The department store chain owns 25 million square feet of space across 3,200 properties, with a store located within 10 miles of 71 percent of the U.S. population. With the formation of a new subsidiary, Ubiquity Holdings, Sears is seeking to outfit stores with racks of servers, forests of wireless towers on the rooftops leased to cell phone carriers, and in some cases, “business continuity facilities.” This is an emerging industry, providing temporary centers of operations and data recovery services for businesses that are forced out of their offices by a natural disaster or other disruption.

via Sears Turning Old Department Stores Into Data Centers | Fast Company | Business + Innovation

A good example of reuse.

Architectural resilience

Bridgette Meinhold’s new book, “Urgent Architecture” features dozens of housing models designed to withstand the misfortunes of earthquakes, typhoons, tornadoes and rising sea levels. They bend and float, adapt and are portable for the most outrageous weather conditions. Inhabitat

As climate change continues to loom large in preparedness planning globally, these kinds of affordable solutions will be crucial to well-being especially in lower geographic and economic areas.

Pollution Negative Design

Using a new type of tile that converts the chemicals in pollution into less toxic substances, the Torre de Especialidades is fighting the city’s bad air–and looking good in the process. Plenty of green buildings cut down on pollution with design features that minimize their energy usage. A tower under construction at a Mexico City hospital, on the other hand, actually eats pollution in the air that surrounds it. The Torre de Especialidades is shielded with a facade of Prosolve370e, a new type of tile whose special shape and chemical coating can help neutralize the chemicals that compose smog: and not just a small amount of them, but the equivalent produced by 8,750 cars driving by each day.

The tile is the first product by Berlin-based design firm Elegant Embellishments, whose co-founder Allison Dring explained to me via email, just exactly how a 100-meter-long tile screen can suck up serious amounts of smog.

via 1 | This Beautiful Mexico City Building Eats The City’s Smog | Co.Exist: World changing ideas and innovation

Why couldn’t buildings, as in this case beautiful buildings, be designed not just to not emit pollution or sit neutrally in high urban pollution zones, but actually break down pollutants into useful substances?

It’s ingenious, perhaps suggesting new building policies that incentivize pollution eating design.

The Magic Of Reframe

Tina Seelig in Fast Company Magazine has a great piece on reframing problems. Any shift in the parallax of our perspective reveals new possibilities. Two examples.

At the Stanford d.school, students are taught how to empathize with very different types of people, so that they can design products and experiences that match their specific needs. When you empathize, you are, essentially, changing your frame of reference by shifting your perspective to that of the other person. Instead of looking at a problem from your own point of view, you look at it from the point of view of your user. For example, if you are designing anything, from a lunch box to a lunar landing module, you soon discover that different people have very diverse desires and requirements. Students are taught how to uncover these needs by observing, listening, and interviewing and then pulling their insights together to paint a detailed picture from each user’s point of view.

Another valuable way to open the frame when you are solving a problem is to ask questions that start with “why.” In his need-finding class, Michael Barry uses the following example: If I asked you to build a bridge for me, you could go off and build a bridge. Or you could come back to me with another question: “Why do you need a bridge?” I would likely tell you that i need a bridge to get to the other side of a river. Aha! This response opens up the frame of possible solutions. There are clearly many ways to get across a river besides using a bridge. You could dig a tunnel, take a ferry, paddle a canoe, use a zip line, or fly a hot-air balloon, to name a few.

via How Reframing A Problem Unlocks Innovation | Co.Design: business + innovation + design

The Future of User Experience Design

In Fast Company’s Co.Design, designer Philip Battin has a recent piece on the user experience of tech products.

User experiences are subjective and dynamic, but by and large, interactive products are not designed to take people’s changing capacity and experience into account

via 1 | The Next Big UI Idea: Gadgets That Adapt To Your Skill | Co.Design: business + innovation + design

He argues that good design offers different layers of functions and features that correspond to the different capabilities levels of users. In one UI scenario, users are incrementally introduced to “Try” higher level options as they master lower levels. All of this is built into the design.

It inspires corresponding considerations in the design of non-tech experience in navigating new cities, health care systems and government institutions. Design principles definitely worthy in the future of user experience.