Annemiek van Boeijen: good design comes from acknowledging diversity in all its facets
Annemiek van Boeijen is an assistant professor of Culture-Sensitive Design at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering. She holds an MSc in Industrial Design Engineering and a Doctorate degree in the field of culture-sensitive design both from the Delft University of Technology. Next to her academic engagement, Annemiek has been extensively involved in design projects in the industry. Her research and teaching focuses on the role of culture in design processes with the aim to develop models, design methods and tools for culture-sensitive design paying special attention to contextmapping techniques. She works on inter-and multi-national projects, and in particular BoP projects; designing for the largest population in the world that earns least. Annemiek has co-written the TU Delft Design Guide, runs an online course for design students and design practitioners, and has recently published her own book on culture-sensitive design.
Today we are talking to Annemiek about her experience with multidisciplinary. How did it happen that a designer with an engineering background started weaving anthropological perspectives into her approach to design? What ignited her turn towards a culture sensitive design? What does it take to design for a diverse society? She also elaborates on the importance of combining a curious mind with a pragmatic attitude and the added value of being part of academia. We ask Annemiek to tell us more about her recently published book and the motivation behind this big project. And lastly, how does Annemiek see the impact of the recent designs as a reaction to Covid19: are they adding to the homogenizing trend or the opposite? Listen to this episode and lets reflect on those questions together.
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Mentioned in Podcast:
Delft Design Guide (revised edition): Perspectives – Models – Approaches – Methods, https://www.bookdepository.com/Delft-Design-Guide-revised-edition-Annemiek-Van-Boeijen/9789063695408
Culture Sensitive Design: A Guide to Culture in Practice, Annemiek van Boeijen and Yvo Zijlstra, https://www.bispublishers.com/culture-sensitive-design.html
Culture sensitive design, online course, https://online-learning.tudelft.nl/courses/culture-sensitive-design/
Ursula K. Le Guin, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_K._Le_Guin
Social media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annemiek-van-boeijen-b943265/?originalSubdomain=nl
