Cristina Salvador

A PhD grant for a research on children's furniture brought the opportunity of teaching in the design degree of Lisbon's School of Architecture of the University of Lisbon. On the 2nd year, in particular, the students got in touch with designing ceramics, learning its methods and technologies, in a hands-on and very practical stage of the degree. This paper reports a teaching/learning process in which a child- friendly tile project in ceramics was developed and put to practice, working side-by-side with the students, monitoring them, prototyping ceramic coatings and other objects, while giving them the opportunity to follow the tile project and share their own experience and practical understanding of the material's potentiality. It was observed that this process allowed an enriched interaction between teacher and students, in which both subjects teach and learn, sharing knowledge and experience. Strengthening ties with motivation and enthusiasm, while watching the projects grow and develop, within a context of an applied practical knowledge in the academy, also establishing bridges with an industrial professional practice. A study based in questioning was made with university students, female and male, searching for their reactions at a hands-on design teacher who is also a student, their reactions to projects by teachers connecting the academy with professional practice and the impact of the interaction on their projects and motivation to pursue the design degree. Although with small sample limitations, the study found positive results, which may reflect the importance of design practice and experience sharing in the teaching and learning process.

In a product design research, which includes a children's high chair project, it was necessary to develop a comfort cushion for children from 6 months up to 3 years of age. This children's furniture project seeks for solutions more adapted to the child, both physically and psychologically, enabling an extended product's life cycle and contributing to sustainability. The starting point was the search for a bamboo lyocell fibres' producer for the cushion's cover, as well as a producer of biopolymer or polymer foams for its filling, both from Portugal. This study reports a literature review based research, contacts with producers and the prototyping process of the comfort cushion, describing interactions between academy and industry and including a partnership with the portuguese company TintexTextiles. Although bamboo and biopolymers weren't avail-able, it was possible to produce the prototype and to conclude that connections between academy and industry may be an added value to every research project, which includes a product's prototyping.

A ceramic tile's project, which is intended to stimulate the interaction with children, has been developed and prototyped. It focuses on physical and emotional comfort through visual and tactile properties, targeting children as well as parents as users and consumers. This project aims to create diversity by appropriation of the users, who may customize it using their imagination. The contribution of Human Factors and Ergonomics in a stage of evaluation of this design has been used as a tool in the design process. Apart from literary review, this paper reports on a study with primary school children with 9-12 years of age, based on interview and a quasi-experimental approach with drawing sessions, facing prototypes of the ceramic tiles' project. The results revealed their diversity, their interaction with indoor environment, and the child's imaginary universe in the context of the pre-teenage phase of their development. Also conclusive is the overall importance that HFE revealed once more in the development of a design project.

Leading a research project on Product Design about children’s furniture, the aim is to create a better environment for children, adapting furniture to their physical and psychological needs, namely a high chair following child’s growth from 6 months up to 7 years of age. The goal is also to provide solutions, which may enable extended product life cycles, contributing to sustainability. Taking Ergonomics and Human Factors as a tool for the understanding of how children interact with furniture, this study searches for relations between 3 different approaches in an ergonomic level: an interview based study with pre-school children (direct users), along with drawing sessions; an interview based study with parents (indirect users); and an adaptability study with high chairs available in the market (case study). When comparing results and conclusions, these studies give a glance on how children are such a difficult target, highly subjective and prone to change. However, even if a relation between the results of the different approaches is sometimes narrow, is through the use of Ergonomics and Human Factors as one of the main tools in this design research project, that we can start to reach a better understanding of how can furniture be adapted to the child.

In the final phase of a product design research, aiming to produce prototypes for a children’s high chair project, more adapted to the child and sustainability and capable of following child’s growth from 6 months up to 7 years of age, having a 10 high chair models’ case study as a starting point, a study concerning the choice of materials for this equipment was made. Visual and tactile comfort characteristics of wooden objects and the way humans interact and use them, as well as the issues concerning sustainability and waste reduction are main factors to deal with in this design project. A literary review based study revealed wooden materials in interiors and objects to have a positive psychological influence in humans, with a pacifying and relaxing effect. In conclusion, this study gave directions about the choice of materials and its finishing for the high chair project, leading to wooden based materials, capable of positively affect human’s well being and behavior as well as contribute to a sustainable environment.

In the final phase of a product design research about the adaptation of children’s furniture to the child and sustainability, namely high chairs, a literary review based research about textile fibres and its properties and utilities, seemed necessary to begin a decision-making process in terms of materials for the textile elements on a high chair project, being the comfort cushion’s textile cover for babies or toddlers, the main target. Given the specific problems inherent to a child’s sensitive skin, as well as the characteristics of the most common fibres of each fibre group, it was possible to conclude that natural fibres from vegetable source such as bamboo or man-made fibres with cellulose such as lyocell, stand out. Due to its hygroscopic, allergenic, resistance, thermal and tactile properties combined with sustainable and eco-friendly origins, a combination of bamboo raw material with lyocell manufacturing process seems to be the best option for the project.

At the starting point of a children’s furniture design project, which is part of a Product Design research, the contribution of Human Factors and Ergonomics to this stage of the design process, could not be overlooked. In early stages of this research other studies of this nature were made and it seemed necessary to return to HFE in order to project suitable dimensions for the equipment. Based on case study and literary review, with the use of schematic drawing, this study about physical adaptability to the child, from 6 months up to 7 years of age of 6 selected evolutive high chairs, aims to understand if mismatches or gaps between the child’s physical development and the equipment’s dimensions exist, lowering the level of adaptability. The results clearly separate the group in three different adaptability levels, pointing out directions for this project and demonstrating the importance of Ergonomics and Human Factors in the Design process.

Within the context of an investigation in product design, focusing on children’s furniture (high chairs), a research was made, dealing with issues as affective sustainability, leading to waste reduction and product optimization. The child is a special target, since the need of affection and support and the potential intensity of emotional bonds are highly present in this early stage of human development.
Along with literary review, the use of Ergonomics and Human Factors as a tool, in order to observe and analyze children’s behavior towards specific types of furniture through an interview based study, may contribute to a bigger understanding of what enables an emotional connection between subject and object and what are their parents’ choices based on. Ergonomics may be an essential key to this understanding, as it helps unravel how humans interact with their surroundings in a full extent, both
physically and psychologically.
Conclusions may not result in a magic formula in order to create super objects, which every children would want and love, but at least gives a better understanding on how sensitive and subjective child’s attachment to objects can be and how decisive can
Ergonomics be in the research process for a design project.

Uma das mais interessantes autoras de ilustração de livros infantis em Portugal, Danuta Wojciechowska, consegue uma verdadeira alquimia, gerindo a cor de forma brilhante e coerente. Procuraremos desvendar as bases do seu trabalho, lançando um olhar a teorias da cor e tomando como exemplo, algum do seu trabalho de ilustração de contos africanos.

In a product design research about children’s furniture and its adaptation to the child and sustainability, the aim is to search for solutions, which can follow child’s growth. Namely, through a project of a high chair with an age target from 6 months up to 7 years of age, capable of contributing to sustainable development with a longer product life cycle. Given the concept of affective sustainability to prevent waste, enabling a stronger bond with a product and colour possibly being an important element in the child’s emotional response and product attachment, this study searched for a relationship between colour and sustainability. Dealing with variables such as gender, age, education and cultural background and the concepts of emotional and pleasurable design, the results of this literary review based study made it possible to narrow the chromatic choices to a limited range of colours, which would be optional in this design project.

Leading an investigation in product design about children’s home furniture, a research for a case study on evolutive chairs brought us to an approach which can point out ways for a better and more adequate practice in Design. The work of Peter Opsvik (n. 1939), a Norwegian designer, searches for a balance between traditional materials, innovative ergonomic approaches and ecological and ethical concerns. Finding elements which define Opsvik’s practice and thinking, we may conclude his theories, apart from traditional design approaches, add a valuable study in human nature and lead to a better and more complete attitude as a designer.

O objectivo desta investigação é contribuir para uma melhor adequação do mobiliário à criança, potenciando um aumento do tempo útil de vida do produto e consequente contributo para a sustentabilidade; Melhorar o ambiente material infantil, tornando-o mais atractivo, saudável e sustentável.