Design Research
Below is a list of my Design Research projects thus far, including qualifications, awards, exhibitions, and publications.
Research Projects
PowerUp learning by Reece.
As a Learning Experience Designer & Product Owner with PowerUp, my role was to conduct user research into our specific audience base (tradespeople in Australia), then design experimental learning journeys for them, in order for them to obtain specific learning objectives.
See more about this work here >
Plasticful Foods
During the 6 months of the Design & Applied Research Traineeship at the Digital Society School, Amsterdam, my interdisciplinary & international team and I developed Plasticful Foods, a speculative design project aimed at changing waste management behaviours. We worked in partnership with the University of Amsterdam, and the Applied Science University of Amsterdam’s ‘New Waste Vision.’
Throughout this applied research, we discovered the benefits of using curiosity as a motivator for sustainability projects and explored how Speculative Design and Guerilla marketing strategies could be used in tandem, in order to disrupt the audience’s normalised mindsets around waste management.
The project has been considered successful by all stakeholders. See below for its list of awards, exhibitions, and publications. This project was slated for expansion across the UvA and HvA’s networks with the involvement of the Municipality of Amsterdam, before the outbreak of Covid-19 in early 2020.
See more about this work here >
View the projects full website here >
Designing Disruptions to the Consumerist Mindset
My MA thesis research explored the possibility of disseminating a disruption of the consumerist mind-set to mainstream audiences through current ‘minimalist’ trends. Through a Vital Materialist analysis of these trends, I ultimately concluded that the potential for these trends to challenge the social logic of consumerism was obscured by the monetised channels through which the trends were disseminated. This thesis research was graded 8 (HD).
You can read this research here >
Re:Source project
During my MA course, I was lucky enough to participate in a small way in the Re:Source project. This project explored methods of designing, managing, and maintaining circular processes in urban residual flows. I contributed a literature review of the theoretical basis for the project, which later won the Design Research category at the Dutch Design Awards 2019.
You can read more about this project here >
Qualifications
MA Arts & Culture, Design Cultures at VU Amsterdam, The Netherlands. (7.8 GPA EU)
BA Visual Communications, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. (2.9 GPA AU)
QSC Graduate, Varsity College, Gold Coast, Australia. (OP3 / Approx. ATAR 92.5)
Awards, Exhibits & Publications
April 2021: Plasticful Foods exhibited at Milan Design Week with Isola Design District.
March 2021: Plasticful Foods project was included as a case study in SpeculativeEDU’s publication Beyond Speculative Design: Past – Present – Future.
Novemeber 2020: published Shaping Change, the book that documents the research of all Digital Society School teams from the Fall 2019 semester. I am a chapter author and editor-in-chief.
April 2020: Plasticful Foods exhibited at Dutch Design Week with Isola Design District
March 2020: Plasticful Foods awarded the DelaO Speculative Design Challenge Award 2020.
January 2020: Plasticful Foods - Articles published about the project in Hvana and Folia Magazines, Amsterdam.
October 2019: Re:Source project won the Design Research category at the Dutch Design Awards.
March 2016: Spacey Spice small business launch and exhibition at Magic Johnston, Melbourne.