Past
Before coming to the Netherlands to pursue my master’s at TU Eindhoven, I completed a bachelor’s degree in design at the Danish Royal Academy in Copenhagen, with a focus on furniture and spatial design. The program emphasized a creative expression of design through hands-on material exploration, aesthetics, craftsmanship, and sustainability. While working extensively with physical materials and technical tools through digital fabrication methods such as 3D printing and CNC milling, I became increasingly interested in engaging more deeply with technology, not only as a means of fabrication but as an active component of interaction. This motivation led me to TU Eindhoven.
In my first semester within the New Futures squad, I worked on an IoT concept using sleep-tracking data combined with AI models and algorithms to promote awareness of sleep habits of users in an empathetic, non-obtrusive way. Although the project aligned with my ambition to work more closely with technology, the transition to a research-driven and structured design approach proved challenging. This experience highlighted the need to better balance creative exploration with methodological clarity.
Because of this, I subsequently returned to a more material-led approach in the Sensory Matters squad, exploring eggshells in a material-driven approach more-than-human perspective using data from the egg industry as parametric input reflected in digitally fabricated artifacts. The project evolved a societal perspective in questioning our valuation of human and non-human effort. While this reinforced my creative methodology and material strengths, I was still seeking to develop more in designing interactive products.
To bridge this gap, I developed my M1.2 project centered on the design philosophy of slow technology. Designing a compass-like navigation device allowed me to build technical skills in electronics and programming, working with microcontrollers, servo motors, and GPS sensors. This project also marked a deeper engagement with critical design, helping me refine a personal design position that I continued to develop in subsequent work.
Building on this foundation, my M2.1 project explored a series of devices following a speculative approach, including a camera and sound player designed to encourage attentiveness to the of our immediate environments. Working with image and sound data as well as AI-based systems strengthened my ability to create well-engineered, interactive, and technically integrated prototypes and further clarified my interest in designing products that invite engagement rather than enforce behavior.
This collection of “slow” devices shared a distinct cohesive design language and initially served as a means to communicate alternative approaches to technology use to external stakeholders. When collaboration with industry did not materialize, I returned to one of these prototypes and focused on developing it into a more feasible navigation device for everyday use. In the absence of a company partner, I placed greater emphasis on user involvement, adopting a more experience-centered approach to evaluate how such a device could function meaningfully in daily life.