Sensory Garden Lab Past Event
Presented by RMIT University School of Design
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Dates
12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
10:00 am – 4:00 pm
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Access
Wheelchair Access
Sensory Garden Lab Past Event
Presented by RMIT University School of Design
As the demand for urban greening increases in Melbourne, it is becoming increasingly important that data around these spaces are transparently available to the public. Data shows that yes, parks improve mental well-being and reduce energy consumption, but what safety and health risks do they pose? What are the lesser-known consequences of human-made urban parks that seem insignificant, but pose large financial costs over time?
Using data journalism and olfactory design, Sensory Garden Lab encourages people to create a custom fragrance based on their perceptions of green spaces juxtaposed against a base formula using current and historical crime and health data. The installation lets participants engage with City of Melbourne park data mapped on to natural fragrances.
Designed and conceptualised by RMIT students Stephanie Ochona, Size Liu, Jiechen Zhao and Yuanjun Kang, this exhibition builds on a university data design elective led by industry fellow and PHD candidate Regine Abos. To complement the installation, a panel of researchers and industry experts will discuss how interactive design, data journalism and materialisation can encourage reflection and empower community.
Participants
Stephanie (She/They) is a Filipino multidisciplinary designer creating and learning from unceded Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Country. They are completing their Master of Design Innovation and Technology at RMIT with a focus on decolonising design, social innovation, and pluralities in practice.
Size Liu is currently completing their Master of Design Innovation and Technology at RMIT with a background in digital media.
Jiechen Zhao recently completed his Master of Design Innovation and Technology with a background in industrial design.
Yuanjun Kang is currently completing their Master of Design Innovation and Technology at RMIT with a background in International business.
Regine Abos is a multi award-winning designer who runs the design consultancy Studio Regina, a studio focused on data representation, information design and image-making. She lectures into both undergraduate and post-graduate programmes at the School of Design at RMIT University and works with industrial design teams on visualising their research, making highly technical data more accessible to various stakeholders. She is currently undertaking a PhD at Swinburne University of Technology, researching how playful physical representations of data can help reinforce the consumer’s role in the reduction of food waste and democratise access to data-driven narratives.
Chuan Khoo is an inter-disciplinary digital media artist, interaction designer and educator. He manipulates electronic contraptions and machine intelligence to create speculations in logic and computing. Using a combination of traditional, digital media, and bespoke or hacked electronics, his work ranges from objects and installations that embody and critique technological utopias, eliciting a disarmingly calm aesthetic that veils the technological underbelly driving them. As an educator, Chuan has extensive teaching experience in the areas of Interaction and Experience Design, espousing his core philosophy in developing balanced designers with sound critical thinking, good practical design and a technologically-curious mindset.
Sara Eichner is a designer and cartographer focusing on data driven stories. She works in Brooklyn, NY with Pratt Institute’s Spatial Analysis and Visualization Initiative (SAVI) on a variety of design and geospatial projects, and she teaches GIS and spatial thinking in the Pratt School of Information Graduate program. Some recent and ongoing projects are with the NYC DOT, Etsy, the NY State Department of Conservation, the Queens Museum, and the NY-NJ Harbor & Estuary Program. Sara has also had a career as a visual artist. Drawing from these backgrounds in visual art and data visualization, Sara has worked as an organizer of the annual Data Through Design exhibition in New York City since 2019.