Raw shaping form finding : seven tacit tangible interactive design experiments

With the emergence of 3-D computational design, the industrial design and engineering process shifted from traditional analogue physical representations of ideas or artefacts to digital virtual realities. This shift is creating pre-dominance of digital design over the idiosyncrasies of analogue craftsmanship of the designer. In this report, we follow two main research directions in our attempt to bridge this design gap. Firstly, we execute an empirical user-study in combination with seven tacit-tangible design task experiments. We aim to measure the effectiveness (i.e. qualitative), performance, and other qualities of various shaping and representation techniques. Secondly, we show the preliminary design and build of hybrid design tool prototypes (RSFF-HDT) that targets to bring back the tacit-tangible elements of design and/or engineering processes integrated in CAD-systems.