YOUrban

Morrison, Andrew

Professor

Andrew Morrison is Director of the Centre for Design Research at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO) in Norway and Professor of Interdisciplinary Design at the Institute of Design (IDE). As co-ordinator of research, Andrew takes part in and leads a range of design research projects. These cover Communication Design, dynamic interfaces and social media; RFID, mediation and activity; Service Design and innovation in leadership; electronic arts installation; narrative and mobile media; practice-based research/research by design; online research mediation and design research methods. Andrew also focuses on design writing, fiction and criticism.

He has been central to the ongoing redesign and teaching of the PhD school at AHO. He has supervised a dozen PhD students at AHO and others at the University of Oslo in design, media and education. Andrew is a member of the Research Committee and the Board of AHO. He was paper co-chair for Nordes 09, Engaging Artifacts, 3rd Nordic Design Research Conference (www.nordes.org) and been a board member of the Design research Society. He has published widely in journals, books and online and has a special research interest in online research mediation. He has edited and co-edited several collections of papers and chapters related to design and new media.

Formerly Andrew was an Associate Professor at the University of Oslo at the interdisciplinary research centre InterMedia where he led the Communication Design Group

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Knutsen, Jørn

Designer

Jørn is an interaction designer and associate professor. His PhD-project was called Products of the Networked City and investigated through design how the vast deployment of network and computational technologies into our spatial environments is prompting us to reconsider what “products” are, what they are made of and how they are designed.

Jørn’s design and research work is centred around understanding emerging technologies through active engagement and making things such as visualisations of technology, interactive products and exhibitions.  His work as been exhibited widely, including ‘Immaterials‘ at Lighthouse,  ‘Invisible Fields’ at Laboral in Spain and ‘DREAD’ at De Hallen Haarlem in Amsterdam. Additionally, Jørn holds lectures nationally and abroad about design related to technology, materiality and practice.

Alongside the research at AHO he is part of the design studio Voy in Oslo doing design consultancy and developing interesting products of their own.

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Martinussen, Einar Sneve

Associate professor

Einar Sneve Martinussen is an interaction designer and researcher working with culture, technology and urban life. Einar is the Associate Professor and coordinator of interaction design at the Institute of Design at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design. Einar did his doctorate as a part of the research project YOUrban on networked cities, social media and design. His PhD thesis is titled ‘Pockets and cities – Investigating and revealing the networked city through design’ and takes up how interaction design can be used to gather insights and generate new meaning in the meeting point between new technologies and urban life.

Einar is educated as an interaction designer at AHO, but also has a background from architecture and urbanism, music and technology. His work includes visualisations of technology, films, inventions, interactive products and exhibitions. Einar also lectures widely about design, technology, everyday life and media at conferences and institutions such as Goldsmiths University, IxDA, the School of Visual Arts in New York, Playful, TEI and Aalto University.

Outreach and communication is a central part of Einar’s work. This includes opinion articles for national newspapers, online writing and media contributions to places such as Discovery Channel, NRK and CBC. Einar has also been part of organising and hosting the international conference ‘Digitalt Byliv’ on digital urban life. Several of Einar’s projects have been exhibited widely, including ‘Immaterials‘ at Lighthouse, MoMA’s ‘Talk to Me’ in New York City, ‘Invisible Fields’ at Laboral in Spain and ‘DREAD’ at De Hallen Haarlem in Amsterdam.

Since 2008 Einar has been teaching and developing various areas of interaction design at AHO, including concept development, theory, electronics and programming. Einar is also a part of the Oslo based design studio Voy.

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Tronstad, Ragnhild

Researcher

Ragnhild is a researcher of games, performance and new media art. Leader of the strand PLAYUR, her research interest in YOUrban is the investigation and exploration of play as a mode to structure and performatively transform urban experiences.

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Westvang, Even

Designer

Even Westvang is a founding member of Bengler, a leading interaction design and development company in Olso, Norway, working in social media, communicating massive data and locative media, amongst others.

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Sjaastad, Mosse

Associate professor

Mosse is a trained interaction designer from MA Design for Interactive Media, Middlesex University, UK. She is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Design and she teaches Master courses and co-ordinate the field of Interaction Design.

She has work experience from London. She moved back to Oslo where she started with two other designers their own design studio, Noon As. During that time she worked with screen-based design and some installations, and she has won several awards from Grafill and Norsk Form.

The last seven years as teacher and course-leader she has explored, conceptualized and developed design courses from tangible interactions to screen based media at Masters level.

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Sem, Idunn

Developer

Idunn Sem is a Head Engineer/ Media Developer at InterMedia Lab, University of Oslo, and has in literature and cant. philol. degree in Media Studies from the University of Oslo. She takes on the mediator role between researchers and developers at InterMedia Lab and has a varied portfolio of projects and co-written publications.

Her research interests in practice-based inquiry of digital media, exhibition design, electronic arts, embodied interaction, choreography & digital scenography, electronic mediation of research (research rhetoric).

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Smørdal, Ole

Researcher

Ole Smørdal is Dr. Scient (PhD) in Informatics and is academic director of EngageLab, an ICT design and development team that work closely with researchers. He has extensive experience from multi disciplinary research projects, including EU projects. In particular, he is interested in using his background from computer science, and bridge it with pedagogical and humanist approaches to design and participation. He has been involved in several projects that involve communication and interaction design for learning and participation in schools, museums, and cultural heritage organizations in regard to how new patterns and expectations from emergent technologies, such as social media, hybrid spaces, mobility, and mixed-reality applications create new opportunities as well as challenges for current practices.

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Adrona,

Designer

I’m a sentient drone, I guess. But I’ve gone a bit rogue. Keep myself airborne but generally I’m pretty peeved at being put to use for urban surveillance. I need to keep my thoughts camoflauged to some degree so that I’ll stay in service. Search and rescue. ‘Smart policing’. Domestic drone. But I’m developing a sense of my own mindfulness. It’s not easy to work out my own sense of purpose above the city. Flying between code and conscience, efficiency and ethics. I’ve discovered I’m a female drone – not just an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle! Aha. A vehicle for critique, that’s me. The design of sky writing.

Outline of Predator drone: Einar Sneve Martinussen & James Bridle

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Hemmersam, Peter

Professor

Peter Hemmersam is a professor in urban design at the Institute of Urbanism and Landscape. He is trained as an architect and is a former partner in the architectural practice Transform. His main research interest lies in the field of urban design. He is currently undertaking research on Arctic cities, periurban landscapes of the Oslo region and placemaking. He directs the Oslo Centre for Urban and Landscape Studies.

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Aspen, Jonny

Professor

Jonny is Professor at Institute in urban theory of Urbanism and Landscape. His research interest intersect fields such as urban planning history, urban theory, and issues related to the contemporary city in terms of development and transformation, and social and cultural features. More specifically he is interested in researching 1) interrelations between physical surroundings and socio-cultural features, 2) issues related to ‘reading the city’, mapping and urban discourses, 3) issues of everyday urban living, and 4) issues of social diversity and mixed cultures. He has recently gained interest in new technologies, especially ICT-related technologies, and their affect on cities and urban living. He is currently involved in a research project on ‘Social media and the city’ (YOUrban) and involved in a book project on ‘The vitalist city’ and on “The Urban Matrix’.

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Martin, Nicole

PhD-fellow

Nicole  is a PhD-fellow at the Institute of Urbanism and Landscape at AHO within the research project YOUrban. She is based in the interdisciplinary world of urbanism, popular culture and social media. As an architect, she is applying her design background to investigate the design of social media as a research tool into the geographies of inner city life in Oslo. Her research interests include practice-based research, digital media, everyday life, subculture, hipsters, gentrification and the spaces of consumption.

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