Mark Armstrong: Design of Tomorrow
Australian Industrial designer Mark Armstrong has played an integral role in design of significant projects from the Cochlear bionic ear to the 2000 Sydney Olympics Torch. fluoro spoke with Armstrong about humanising innovation in design and pre-empting the design capabilities for aerospace projects.
Armstrong is a founder of multi-disciplinary design group Blue Sky Design, who work with a variety of international clients. Armstrong’s association with MADA (Monash Art Design and Architecture), Melbourne has seen him involved in research for projects that focus on changing lives rather than aesthetics. “It is great when the aesthetic is the result of really understanding the circumstance of the people who will use or interact with the device,” he says. Armstrong is currently overseeing an aerospace project that will not be brought to life until 2025. His expertise allows an understanding of how to predict the technologies of tomorrow.
(f) What is the biggest change in technology that has impacted your work in the past 15 years?
In industrial design there have been big changes. In terms of process, the way we design things has changed. Technologically the tools that industrial designers use have changed, with computer very much influencing design outcomes, while prototyping means objects can be printed at the desk.
Traditionally industrial design has been focused on objects. Recently an understanding has been developed of that industrial design applies to all the touch points a customer comes into contact with. Industrial designers are now involved in experience design in airports and banks, where the product might be a change of behaviour.
(f) Tell us more about how your work humanises design solutions.
It centres on process. In terms of medical devices, we do a lot of analysis to understand the exact environment of use and circumstances. Typically medical devices, being body worn, are skin coloured devices, however I think humanising is about treating a medical device as you would any other piece of design.
(f) Do you believe industrial design is contributing to the concept of social design? How?
(MA) Because of the analytical nature of industrial design, it is sometimes better suited to social problems where the outcome of the design can affect behaviour. When the outcome changes someone’s life, you can’t get any better than that. I have worked appliances such as toasters, which you know they are for the commercial world. But when you are involved in a project that is going to do more for someone’s life than brown their toast you know it is an important contribution.
(f) In terms of aerospace design, how do you pre-empt the technologies of the future when designing for 2025?
(MA) When an aerospace project is conceived there is a technological capability of the industry. When the project is completed there are a different set of technologies as it can be as far apart as 20 years from inception to delivery. Design flexibility and adaptability need to be built in. Predictive research is factored in to judge the technologies that will be available and able to be built in. As technologies become viable they are added into the design and realised.
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There are a number of international projects in the future that will see Armstrong support MADA, Australia in their research collaborations with Electrolux in Stockholm to improve the energy efficiency of future Electrolux projects. Another project includes working with Biotech and Cochlear, to develop a new interface system to control the devices as they reduce in size.
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