Industry and community

Educational collaboration

A toy that reports a child’s behaviour, an interactive game that destigmatises mental health, and a virtual healing garden that cultivates patient feedback - these are among 24 ideas developed by University of Sydney students to aid in the delivery of better healthcare.

Students from the Master of Interaction Design program have been collaborating with the mental healthcare service, Redbank House at Westmead, to identify and create new technologies to healthcare services.

The students undertook their own research to identify a problem and design a piece of technology that would address the issue. They focused on one of four healthcare needs that included integrated care, mental health, clinical care and patient experience.

Among the innovative ideas developed was an interactive toy that captured the progress of a child with behavioural or mental health issues. The toy is designed to talk to the child while recording responses that are reported back to parents, teachers, social workers or psychologists managing the child’s progress.

Leading the project was Dr Naseem Ahmadpour, a Lecturer in Design Thinking and researcher in the Design Lab, who sees great potential for design-led thinking to promote better healthcare and to inspire new technology that will enable people to self-manage their health.

“Interactive and creative technology such as apps, digital screens and augmented or virtual reality environments that are well-designed and intuitive for people to use have the potential of becoming valuable aids in the future delivery of healthcare and to improve health literacy.”

Festival of Urbanism

The annual Festival of Urbanism, in its fifth year in 2018, aims to expose the real historical, political and economic forces shaping cities and urban life in an era of post-truth politics.

The two-week festival of talks, panels, films, exhibitions and tours sees local and international speakers, academic researchers, industry leaders, policy makers and community groups take a deeper look at the real facts of living in global cities such as Sydney.

The big urban issues including smart cities, housing and living affordability, city growth and inequality, and balancing heritage conservation and social issues with urban renewal, are examined alongside Australians’ obsession with car ownership, the slow progress with Indigenous planning, and the pop-up culture reinventing communities.

Professor Peter Phibbs, Head of Urban and Regional Planning and Policy said:

“In a time when the challenges facing Australian cities are substantial, the political and economic discourse about cities is light on evidence and too focused on rent-seeking and fake data. The debate needs to move past slogans and symbolic policies, and engage the community in a real discussion about the trade-offs facing our cities.”

Research collaboration

The University of Sydney and Lendlease have been awarded a $3 million grant by the Australian Government to undertake a collaborative research project to develop prefabricated multi-storey housing solutions.

The five-year industry-led project received funding from the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science's Cooperative Research Centre Projects program to develop and build prototype housing solutions that use high-tech, renewable materials and advanced manufacturing processes.

Kylie Rampa, Chief Executive Officer, Lendlease Property, said that the demand for affordable and diverse housing is calling for new housing solutions from industry.

"We aim to bring to market an innovative housing system that is design-led, which will help address affordability issues, while developing advanced manufacturing technologies and techniques for future housing construction.”

Professor Mathew Aitchison, Director of the Innovation in Applied Design Lab, said that the project presents an enormous opportunity to bring innovation to the residential construction market, which has remained largely unchanged in the last 100 years.

"Despite major advances in other manufacturing sectors, innovation in residential construction is lagging. This project seeks to drive efficiency and safety benefits and boost Australia's competitiveness internationally, where we have seen a notable increase in advanced manufacturing in building over the past decade."

The project will develop a range of solutions for the multi-storey housing market that address increasing urban density and residential market demands.

Robotic design and fabrication of spatial structures

A research collaboration between the Design, Modelling & Fabrication Lab (DMaF) and architectural firm, BVN. The use of digital fabrication in architecture and design continues to accelerate globally, as the innovation and creative potential of robotics is harnessed by the architecture industry.

In highly collaborative organisations, the physical configurations of workspaces, open plan office environments and specifically workplace infrastructure need to be adequate for a mobile workforce. This research project investigates a robotic weaving that rethinks the idea of integrated ceiling services. This approach uses the intrinsic material properties and structural performance of carbon fibres: the freeform and onsite robotic weaving provides the hanging structure for data distribution. 

Research collaboration

The University of Sydney's IEQ (Indoor Environmental Quality) lab, in partnership with major corporations, is rolling out ground-breaking technology that is tracking the indoor climate in the largest survey of Australian workplaces.

Today we spend more than 90 per cent of our lives indoors, so monitoring our indoor climate is possibly more important than monitoring the outdoor climate, says researcher and world expert on indoor air quality Professor Richard de Dear.

"Many of us now spend our working lives almost exclusively inside office buildings. We therefore need to be better managing indoor environmental factors for the sake of human health and wellbeing long term.

Research shows the considerable impact that IEQ factors can have on productivity in the work place and building sustainability. However, one of the biggest challenges for organisations is understanding the complex science of IEQ"

Built on revolutionary sensor technology, the compact, low-cost SAMBA devices are placed on work-stations a couple of metres apart across an office floor, from where all the vital IEQ factors are tracked. In all, it measures around a dozen different parameters: air temperature, radiant heat, air movement, humidity, light, sound, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, along with various pollutants emitted from building materials.

Data captured by SAMBA is wirelessly relayed in real-time to the University of Sydney's IEQ lab. The data is immediately analysed and interpreted by the lab's IEQ analytics software against IEQ performance standards set by Green Star and NABERS rating systems.

"It will quickly become the world's largest instrumental database on the climate of the indoor work environment. The intelligence SAMBA will give us and our partner organisations provides the perfect opportunity to reset the barometer for healthy and productive workplaces inside buildings.”

Graduate exhibitions

Partner with us in presenting the finest work of our graduating Design and Architecture students. This annual exhibition is a social calendar highlight as industry, students and alumni flock to see the next generation of top architects, designers and urban planners.
 
Our highest achieving students are recognised with awards announced on the night and the expansive exhibition is launched with a joyous celebration. Finely crafted models, brilliant concepts and interactive installations come together as students from across our disciplines collaborate on our biggest event of the year.
 
We would be thrilled to discuss how you can get involved in our next graduate exhibition.