Deco Nature: Master thesis and Steppingstone for the Future

For one year I have been working on a project called Deco Nature.

Deco Nature was a project in corporation with a company called Decoene Products, a wooden indoor door manufacturer, that wanted to incorporate the ecological principles of the passive house in their range of products.

My task was to ensure that the door met all possible requirements of the passive house and respected the ecological principle of it. To do so I used a strategy called lifecycle assesment. Hereby the complete lifecycle of the product is taken in consideration. It consists out of 8 stages:

1. Product design review
2. Low impact materials
3. Material use
4. Production techniques
5. Distribution system
6. Impact during use
7. Initial Lifetime
8. End -of Life systemen

• In the section product design review we look if all the different demands are achieved, in my case: the insulation value, the airtightness and the fire resistance.
• By using the Ecolizer 2.0 tool produced by Ovam the carbon footprint could be calculated and reduced.
• During the development of the project the focus wasn't on reducing the number of components but reducing the number of material categories used in the project. This comes in handy when trying to recycle the door in the end of its lifecycle.
• In the stage of production technique especially profile optimalization techniques have been taken in consideration
• As a distribution system I used an excisting system of a company called ConTeyor
• In the case of interior insulating doors the impact during use isn't due the consumption of energy, but by letting heath escape. Also indoor climate is a hot topic if it comes to impact during use. 
• By using a nesting system of the different kind of profile "warping" of the door will be prevented, this way the initial lifetime will improve.
• Finally the end of life story of Deco Nature  is very simple, because all the materials used in the door consist out of wood based products. This mean only the hinges and the lock need to be disassembled before the door can be recycled.

Following are two overview images that show more or less how the concept is build.

If you are in the mood, below you can see a movie of me on a design exhibition talking about this project. (Starting at 1:08)

More details about several topics will follow in next posts, where i will go deeper in the matter of indoor climate, passive house and several other topics.

For more questions you can always send me a message at info.youaredesign@gmail.com.

Underneath you can see some video's of a project I did. It is called MyMachine, it starts with ideas of elementary school students who draw down their dreammachines. Students industrial design then make the design. Secundary schools then make the product.

Underneath are video's of the result.



MyMachine 2009-2010 tentoonstelling from bart noels on Vimeo.


My machine

Canon EOS 1000D

Also on my trip to France I realized i need a new camera, the blurry images were the prove of that. Nothing more frustrated then coming home wanting to review your pictures and noticing more then 50% is blurry.

That's why I need a new camera. I instantly fell in love with the Canon EOS 1000D, not only is this camera one of the cheapest on the market in terms of reflex camera's it also offers a superbe image quality.

But the 429 euro isn't something I can decide on from one time on the other. But being an industrial designer I am in desperate need of a new one. Let's hope I win the lottery or something like that :d.

Don't hesitate to leave a comment or to give me some suggestions.

moaroom design

Also during my trip in France we went to an exhibition in the cité du design called matières à cultiver. There i fell in love with the design furniture from moaroom, a collaboration of designers, entrepreneurs and artist whom put together a selection of New Zealand design.

Here is a selection of the things i really love:

You see how honnest their construction is, they don't want to hide the way it is made they use the way it is made as a beauty aspect.

Nothing but plain admiration for such a designers.

You can check them out on their website or in their catalogus.

My portfolio is finally there

After some work i finally finished my portfolio.

http://www.wix.com/BartRaeves/Bart-Raeves-Portfolio

Festo Air Creatures

As i told you before we have an assignment considering kites and we are thinking about making an educational way to introduce kids to aerodynamics.

So I rememberred i saw on Discovery Channel onces something about giant air creatures, and i was interested because if there is some place we need to look for aerodynamics it is in nature.

Here are some movies of Festo:









For more in formation you can always look at the festo website

Logorama

During my stay in France we went to the cité de design and there we visited an interesting exhibition called l'object de design.
It is there I saw this movie and when I was home I immediately started searching for it.