Nupky - Social Stairs

Social Stairs. Work in a team to turn a normal piano stairs into an orchestral chorus!

The module started with observations on our social behaviors and habits.

This was done by going and playing in a playground,

and later reflecting on the social behaviors that occured.

The next step was to take our observations and apply them towards a habit of our own. Stairs vs Lift.

Research-through-design process to reach our goal. Here we are trying to make the lift less appealing by making button pressing difficult.

Building the technology for our Social Stairs.

During a two week module my team and I worked on making an alternative to the existing piano stair concept. This one works the same, steps ascend gradually into higher piano notes, except now when two people work together their steps will turn into orchestral chimes that echo up the stairwell. The idea here is that people have fun together and see the stairs as a social place, as well as a fun place.

Secretly, the idea behind this staircase was to gather behavioural data. It is a research-through-design project based on data gathered through a 'probe', which in this case is the staircase. People see it as a simulator for social and healthier behavior (taking the stairs instead of the lift and socializing because of it), but we are also observing to test if these stairs actually make the change envision.

University of Technology Eindhoven (TU/e) - Industrial Design - MSc

Team:
Nadine van Amersvoort
Maxim Sakovich
Rhys Duindam