Since December 2013, the research team of Incubator 2.5 has investigated possible applications of 2.5D printing within architecture. In addition to individual interviews with architecture and design studios, the team has created the Super-Maker, a hub for conducting co-creation workshops to trigger further discussion on the role that creatives can take on in helping determine future applications of this new technology.
The Super-Maker is designed to enable large companies to explore pre-market technology with creative professionals, through using tangible tools that embody the capabilities of the innovation, instead of having the technology itself present. In this way, large companies such as Océ can discuss their innovation without revealing their competitive advantage.
Two such Super-Maker expert meetings have been held in the past few months, with experts within the fields of architecture and design, in addition to technology experts within Océ. Through the workshop activities and discussion about the samples created by the research associates, the experts placed orders for new tangible samples of 2.5D, which were handed out in the second Super-Maker meeting. We came to find that the experts wished to see new explorations of the technology that hadn't been tried out or that didn't have a specific application yet.
In response to this finding, we created the online archive of all our experimentations (www.super-maker.tumblr.com) and invited experts to comment on these to continue the discussion. In addition new samples of 2.5D were made, using textures from gaming developers and also experimenting with new materials.
As a step in our research, we hosted a five week Super-Maker Design Research Space together with Allard Roeterink at the Design Academy Eindhoven, and invited students in as creative experts. Together with Guido Stompff and Clemens Weikamp at Océ Technologies, the student experts created new experimentations with a focus on the 'experience' of 2.5D, building on the research of Incubator 2.5. The outcome was explorations of casting, stamping, flexibility, seeing through tactile elements and manipulations of colour and transparency. In this way, the students added value in exploring the transition between the digital and the physical design as well as following up and materializing branches of the Incubator research that could lead to new opportunities.
The result of this research exploration will be showcased at Dutch Design Week 2014.