VCUQatar students speaking about Synapse Project ‘Managing Life in a Construction Zone
Design professionals and students from across the world have converged at Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar for the biennial design conference Tasmeem Doha 2011 – ‘Synapse: Designer as Link’ which got underway yesterday.
Featuring 14 speakers and 14 workshops, the four-day event is interdisciplinary and collaborative, aiming to forge dynamic links between students, creative problem solvers, local community members, community stakeholders and VCUQatar.
“Designers are making positive changes,” Qatar Foundation vice chairperson Dr Saif al-Hajari said at the opening session which also saw the launch of ‘Tasmeem’ online design journal hosted by QScience.com, the online publishing platform from Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Journals.
VCUQatar dean Allyson Vanstone recalled that the design conference, which was launched in 2004, became biennial since 2009. It is the only event of its kind in the Gulf region.
She thanked Qatar Foundation chairperson HH Sheikha Moza bint Nasser for her vision and support for education.
The conference, being held in partnership with the Ministry of Labour and Qatar Foundation, earlier opened with Tasmeem Committee co-chairs Muneera Spence and Pornprapha Phatanateacha welcoming design industry professionals and students.
Alice Twemlow, conference moderator, leading the Q&A session with students involved in the Synapse projects
Spence introduced the theme of the conference, Synapse: Designer as Link and hoped the conference would help participants “be links to each other”.
She also spoke about the post-Tasmeem Doha publication which would capture the conference and be available soon.
The first morning session saw participants of the various workshops being briefed about the projects. ‘Managing life in a construction zone’, one of the Synapse projects aims to tackle the needs of Qatar’s residents as they find themselves living in the midst of explosive growth and development.
The second Synapse project ‘Health & Well-being’ seeks to address the struggle of staying healthy in a society undergoing enormous change and ‘Stratified Societies’ deals with the design challenge of Qatar undergoing modernisation while preserving its traditions.
VCUQatar students from the two-semester Tasmeem-related course briefed participants on the project. Design challenges from all these projects will be presented on the final day of the conference by their workshop leaders, Qatari architect Ibrahim Jaidah, designer Anab Jain and director of design foundation Line Ulrika Christiansen respectively.
This was followed by a Q&A session with Alice Twemlow, the conference moderator, who will also deliver short presentations at different points throughout the conference that reflect on the different types of learning happening at the different conference venues and forums.
In the afternoon participants joined the various workshops besides the Synapse projects, which included ‘Business Model Design and Development’, “Exploration of viral media’ ‘Exquisite Corpse Laser-Cut Totem’ and four more workshops – Exploring Design in a 3D World: Conceptual Thinking for Young Interior Architects, What is it that Designers do?, Thinking through Drawing and Fantastic Fashion Creative Workshop – that were specifically designed for high school students.
Alexander Osterwalder and Anders Sundelin presented with a multitude of inspirational examples why business model innovation and design thinking are important today and how they go beyond technology and product innovation. This workshop targeted entrepreneurs, businesses and designers specifically.
Exploration of Viral Media and Exquisite Corpse Laser-Cut Totem are two-day workshops. The first explores the concept of viral media and attempts document and disseminate their observations through a variety of media from Twitter and Facebook to YouTube and blogs and also create more tangible art in the form of street art that can be documented and disseminated as widely as possible.
Exquisite Corpse is an undated adaptation of the surrealist game Exquisite Corpse where a set of participants each contribute a segment in consecutive images into a collated assemblage.
Four designers from the Arab world – product designer Younes Duret from Morocco, interior designer Khalid Shafar from the UAE, and graphic designers Richard Kahwagi, from Lebanon and Manar Al Muftah from Qatar -  also gave individual live demonstrations of how their work is made. Visitors were offered a rare view into the designers’ workshop spaces to understand the process that goes into the creation of design products.
Today’s afternoon presentations will be given by Natalie Jeremijenko, Hunter F Tura, Amal Al-Mehain and Fiona Raby. Workshops will be held in the morning.
For more information about Tasmeem 2011, featured speakers, workshops and events, and to register please visit http://www.tasmeemdoha.com/