Interdisciplinarity between design and engineering Case study: the development of a classroom chair for children ages 6 - 10

Abstract

The level of efficiency required nowadays for products to enter the competitive market, led to changes in the methodologies applied by the different actors involved in project development in particular in the area of Design. Today's approach to designing a product is not centred mainly on its creative/aesthetic elements, but rather more and more on its functional purpose in order to adequately respond to the users 'needs and to comply with a wide range of standards, rules and regulations imposed by the market. To satisfy all these requirements, any industrial design project needs to integrate Engineering, Ergonomics or other areas as from its early stages of conception. The area of Design depends on this interdisciplinary approach. For instance, to produce a sculpture, the artist only needs to choose the technology and the raw material. However, to produce a plastic bottle to contain water, specific chemical and mechanical strength testing is needed before selecting the most appropriate materials. This complexity in the field of Design led to innovative methodologies based on an interdisciplinary approach, in particular with the area of Engineering. This methodology is currently applied for projects of Industrial Design by the students of the Master Course in Product and Industrial Design hosted by the Department of Mechanical Engineering FEUP. The integration of the industrial design course in this Faculty allows to develop projects with the contribution of the various fields of Engineering and to benefit from existing partnerships with the industrial sector. The aim of this article is to demonstrate how this methodology was developed. It describes the working methods and processes of Engineering used by Designer as starting point for the development of new products.