· · · Institutional Repository

Integration is still a hot topic in Dutch politics. Declining neighborhoods suffer from poverty, neglected social housing and an over-representation of inhabitants with a non-Dutch cultural background. These severe circumstances have had a strong influence on the youngsters that have been raised in these areas. The Ghetto culture has made his entrance in the declining neighborhood: Youngsters wearing coats with fur collars and golden teeth seem to terrorise neighborhoods. A covering term for this phenomenon amongst youngsters is ‘Street culture’. The district Loosduinen is situated in the city of The Hague, the Netherlands. It is an area where the Street culture has led to feelings of unsafety and deprovation amongst the inhabitants. This report presents a research on the social- cultural integration between the Street culture and Society, the Burger culture within the geographical context of the district Loosduinen. A product- service is developed to improve the social cohesion. The neighborhoods Houtwijk and Nieuw-Waldeck are part of the district Loosduinen. These two areas are the main focus within this project. The two neighborhoods are developed forty years ago. The former Dutch horticulturalists live together with families from various ethnical backgrounds. Neighborhoods where Dutch ‘white trash’ and foreign macho cultures are joint. Small social housing, poverty and dislocated families caused youngsters to spend most of their free time on the streets. The Street culture gives them the feeling to belong, to be part of a group. The youngsters reject against their parents, school, politics and society. They feel that society does not accept them. A common sentence used as an excuse for the derailed behavior is “Ze moeten me toch niet”. Stereotyping in the media confirms their exclusion form society. The future perspective from these youngsters is in contrast with their current behavior. They want a family, job and a house: The ‘normal’ life. Aggressive behavior and criminal activities have led to a vicious circle of distrust between the Street and Burger culture. The clash between the two cultures has led to less possibilities for youngsters to develop themselves within society. Youngsters hace difficulties with job applications. Recruiters and and youngsters distrust eachother as well. Derailed behavior and stereotyped valueing of a person feeds this distrust. Unemployment of youngsters makes the path of crime more appealing. This leads to more nuisance in society. A crucial condition to break through the vicious circle of distrust, is to take away prejudices. When less information is available about a person, stereotypes will be used to generate an opinion about someones personality. A good first impression is important to overcome a stereotyped impression. An interaction needs to be designed to give youngsters enough confidence to show who they are, instead of hiding behind their tough behavior. These insights have led to the development of the WorkTag. This Product- Service System (PSS) stimulates youngsters to apply for a job easy and quick, within the familiarity of the streets. The WorkTag consists of two main products; A Smartphone application and a Sticker. Combined, they give location based information about the type of work. Youngsters see the “Ik heb werk voor je” stickers on the streets. They scan the sticker via their application and see a video message with information about the work. When they like the video, they can directly apply for the job through a selfmade short video clip. The application gives instructions on how the youngsters should make the video. The fact that youngsters makes their own video, the application is within the safety of the streets and the application guides the process, enables the youngster to give a good impression. The video message is directly send to the mail Inbox of the recruiter. First qualitative testing has showed that youngsters react positive on the video applications. Important is that, when the youngster and recruiter meet in real life, prejudices are already taken away. A positive esteem on the video makes youngsters already feel more confident. The recruiter sees an individual in front of him. The video has already given a lot of (nonverbal) information about the youngster. The WorkTag is designed to give youngsters the confidence to express their most positive identity. The scientific relevance of this project can be found in two areas. First is that Product Design could be a useful tool in solving societal issues. Where sociologists and antropologists explain, design can change. Next to this is the scientific relevance on the research on video application. The first qualitative researches have a positive outcome. This first research could be the starting point for further research on this topic. It could prove if video application can be used on a large scale.

This master thesis shows a design project in which the Design for Social Impact method is applied, and evaluated, in Afrikaanderwijk, a socio-economically weak area of Rotterdam, for housing corporation Vestia. Afrikaanderwijk is a part of Rotterdam that has been subject to numerous urban renewal plans in the last couple of decades. A neighborhood which, to an extent, has lost its’ raison d’être since the harbour it was built next to was closed in the seventies. This former harbour oriented working-class area is now a highly cultural and ethnical diverse area which, in spite of these urban renewal projects, is still plagued by an array of complex economic, social and physical problems; high unemployment rates, insufficient youth support, high crime rates, little or no opportunities for social encounters, feelings of insecurity and very limited social mobility to name but a few. Estrade, a subsidiary company of housing corporation Vestia and owning over 85% of the social housing in the area, is now the instigator of a new wave of projects with the intent to address the aforementioned problems and improve the living standard in the neighborhood. In this design project I have strived to design a product that contributes to the improvement of living conditions through implicitly influencing users’ behaviour. As a focal point for this design I have chosen the social phenomenon of ‘social ties’. First research was done on how social ties within Afrikaanderwijk should be influenced for general social benefit. Through observation, interviews and literature research factors influencing social ties, and consequently how social ties can influence the community were defined. With these factors a new context was created in which Mark Granovetter’s theory “The Strength of Weak Ties” formed the basis. This defined the design direction, or the statement; I want to create bridging weak ties in Afrikaanderwijk. Bridging weak ties are social contacts with members from social groups different from one’s own. These bridging weak ties, or social bridges generate more diversity in information flow, creating more opportunities for the members of the community, more familiarity and more social cohesion. In Afrikaanderwijk there are rigid divisions between social networks, or different communities and ethnic groups. Specifically the Turkish community is very closed off from its’ environment, but this goes for more communities within the area. Social control within the group and lack of familiarity with others outside of the group prevents social bridges from emerging. Next the most concrete behaviour resulting in the previously defined statement was defined; I want inhabitants of Afrikaanderwijk to make contact with others outside of their regular social circles. A specific domain in which these social bridges could develop with the presumed highest possibility and efficienty was chosen; parents around the schoolyard. This was directly related to the next step in which a strategy for realizing this desired behaviour was developed. The contact between parents on the schoolyard is limited, and the barriers for making contact with members of different communities are very high. The strategy applied was twofold: -I wanted in my design to focus on positive (inter-cultural) human characteristics, stressing the similarities, to create moments of familiarity to overcome, or at least lower reserves for instigating contact. -I wanted the design to focus on the children’s’ goals and concerns, and parents acting in their favor. The parents would be more willing to overcome their own inhibitions for making new contact, if they accomplish something for their child in the process. In addition, the randomness of the contacts (cross-cultural/bridging) is less apparent with the children, this opens up possibilities. The design is an addition to the way birthdays in primary school are celebrated. Birthdays are not celebrated at home in every culture, but in school everyone does. And indiscriminately the birthday is a highly anticipated event, for the child and in many cases the parent as well. The design is a slide that on regular days is part of the school playground for the older kids, ages 6 and up, accessible with stairs. However, on the 6th birthday of students the slide provides a bridge between celebrations inside, and the parent outside. This is made possible by the parents helping the parent of the birthday child in moving the slide from its’ normal position towards the classroom window, allowing the children (birthday child first) to slide down from the window to the schoolyard. Moving the slide is only possible with the help of others, this is the first moment of contact. With the joy and discharge of the child at the end of the long day in mind, the parent will be implicitly forced, but not experience this as force, to approach or come in contact with others. The focus will be on the end of the slide. The characteristic birthday treats will be handed out, and in a positive, festive and (for the children) euphoric situation emphasis is put on the similarities and positive human characteristics of the parents interacting with their children. In time, the birthday celebration can become a ritual, and a system of reciprocity (parent offering and asking each others aid) can come to be. The repetition of the ritual, and with that the accumulation of the moments of recognized similarity will build up inter-group familiarity with the ‘forced’ moments of collaboration and asking for help providing moments of contact.

The purpose of this project was to create a product service system (PSS) that enhances the social cohesion in a slum community. This report presents the analysis and proposes an approach to develop such a social cohesive product service system, concluding with an example of how the approach works. Social Cohesion is a concept to describe the bonds or “glue” that brings people together in society. It relates to how well people and communities get on together for the benefit of all. It will stimulate socio-economic progress, which is important for people living in developing countries to have a better chance for the future. However the level of community bonding and actions are declining nowadays in slum communities. This project aims at developing a PSS that can enhance the social instead of breaking it down. A context research is performed to create an understanding of the surroundings and users of the PSS that will be developed. Three fictive households are created to gain more empathy with the target group. Next, the theory of social cohesion is explored, which is a multifaceted concept concerning tangible and intangible needs of the community. A dream vision is created which represents the ideal outcome of a good social cohesion. This is a balance between multiple factors: belonging, inclusion, participation, recognition, safety and trust. There is found that the ‘context factors’, these are the basic necessities in life (e.g. health, housing, employment), form the base of social cohesion. Next empowerment and participation of the community play a major role in social cohesion. Making use of the strengths of networks already available and stimulating interaction are other important aspects of stimulating the social cohesion. When stimulating these aspects the outcome will be an enhanced social cohesion. Since participation plays a major role in developing a PSS some research in done into the theory of motivation. It becomes clear that there is a ‘sustainable’ motivation required to generate a long-term participation of the community, this includes a positive intrinsic motivation. Based on the previous finding a list with considerations for the PSS in developed. Combining the findings of social cohesion and motivation led to a three stepped approach for creating a social cohesive product service system for a slum community. First, determine a social cohesive direction by finding a gap in the needs and actual situation of the community regarding the context factors. Second, involve all elements of the community and search for ways in which they can contribute to the PSS. Third, find out what can be a motivation for the residents to participate in the PSS. Combining the outcome of these three steps will lead to a creation of a social cohesive PSS concept. The residents of the slum are the experts; they know best how things work in their community. When using this design approach it is important to involve the residents (co-creation) intensively in each step of the approach. This will also contribute to the empowerment and motivation of the residents. To demonstrate the design approach a waste management system is developed. This is done without real end-users, which have normally a major influence. A concept is created in which the community is rewarded for handing in their waste properly. The residents can save coins for entertainment at the community center. A strong point of this concept is that the whole community benefits from the money that is made with the waste. The design approach is evaluated on theory and assumptions from experts. And in theory this proposed approach will lead to an enhancement of the social cohesion within the slum community. However if the approach really creates a social cohesive PSS can only be tested in practice.

There are 3 forces in uniting Europe, political, economic and social. When European countries are on the march to supranationality, it blurs the national identity, makes people uncertain about the power holders of their destiny, pushing them into withdrawal, either individual and collective. Therefore creating an unbalanced forces in the unity of Europe. The emergence of the city as a global city, causing political, economic disconnection with the city. The disconnection of the local communities with the global network become a major destabilizing force in the EU cities, ushering in a new type of urban crisis. The citizens are the victims and are being confronted with confrontations on their everyday lives. To create a more balanced relationship between the 3 forces, therefore social force needs to be further enforced, to create a synergy between the 3 and balancing the forces in the city of Brussels. Also, bringing up the status of the nation state, the identity of the locality and culture. These social injections will not change but will arguably influence the order of social interaction, and using architecture as a tool to stimulate social connection, provide them with a platform, encourage better communication and enhance social forces.

The conditions of uneven asymmetrical development in Santiago de Chile are explored through the concept of urban thresholds: the divide between the neighbourhoods of La Victoria and San Joaquin, the transition between public and private space, a collaboration between autoconstruction and controlled development, and the boundary between appropriated and designed space. An architectural response is proposed on the transition between these conditions, which addresses each aforementioned quality.

Online social networks showed an enormous growth in the last decade. With the rise of online social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, researchers got the opportunity to access the data of social behavior of millions of people, whereas in the past it was limited to hundreds of people. For these researchers and marketeers it is of great interest to find communities within these large networks, as this is one of the opportunities to see how people behave in groups on a large scale. The most common approach of analyzing community structures in online social networks is to gather the network by downloading the user profiles one by one (crawling) and afterwards partition the network into groups or communities by community detection algorithms. However, crawling an entire social network is very time consuming and analyzing the networks with community detection algorithms can be computationally expensive. To overcome these problems, in this thesis a method is proposed for crawling nodes using the community structure of a network. It enables the researcher to start the analysis before completing the crawl. This new method performs between 66% and 480% better than existing crawling techniques such as Breadth First Search (BFS) and Depth First Search (DFS), because a smaller portion of the networks has to be crawled in order to crawl entire communities. The computer-generated networks used in this thesis were created using a new network generator which uniquely combines three features; it creates networks with explicit community structure, arbitrary degree distributions and adaptable community strength.

The mission of the studio is to open an architectural discourse concerning the development of high-rise building in a city context. The discourse mostly concern the meaning and value of tall buildings in modern society. It is important to rethink and reinvent a tall building type that not only to meet the increasing demands of urban dwelling, and financial exploitation, the highrise could contribute to the urban sustainabiliy and provide alternatives of how city operate, connect with urban fabric, and reflect the nature of the city. My concern in my tall design project is to find a new high-rise typology which could integrate with eixsting urban fabric and street life in an intensifying city. When a city population increase, building scales enlarges and the city may grow into metropolitian. Existing buildings in the city may transform into mega block or super tall buildings. Such mega block building would kill the streetscape and block the urban fabric. Residents living in those building would sense isolation from neighborhood and the lost of identity. It is important to tackle the social problems by introducing new strategies to design high-rise residential buildings. The design is to achieve a rich neighborhood and lively streetscape by re-composite the arrangement of high-rise components to create a new kind of tall building typology.

Online social networks (OSNs) are playing an important role in current world and the way people communicate with each other. Despite the advantage of using online social networks, there are certain privacy risks that can affect users of such services. Since users provide a lot of personal information in OSNs, concerns about how data placed in online social networks may raise among the users. Social networking sites have responded to these concerns by introducing privacy filters to their site, allowing users to specify which aspects of their profile are visible to whom. Such privacy settings is not effectively used by half of the OSN users based on our analysis and we collect large number of public profile information from the well-known social network Hyves.nl in the Netherlands. We then show that public friendship links of a person can expose different attributes about him. Based on friendship links we are able to infer and predict some of the attributes of a user with good accuracy.

This project is about the neighborhood revitalization of Shanghai Cannes, which is a problematic suburban high-density neighborhood in Shanghai. The research itself is a spatial analysis on different scales and mapping of current social networks. The future strategy and design will mainly focus on how to regenerate neighborhood living environment that facilitate social interaction on different scale in order to strengthen the sense of community in Shanghai Cannes.

In this project the answer was searched on the research question how the perceived safety in Dutch underprivileged housing areas can be improved through the enlargement of the social cohesion by means of the design of the public space. In most underprivileged housing areas the socio-spatial problem is that the inhabitants do not feel connected with the neighbourhood and with each other. Furthermore, they are unhappy with their living environment, and in particular the public space. Visitors of the neighbourhood find the public space bad as well, and in some cases do not even dare to go to the housing areas. Currently the method used by municipalities and housing corporations to tackle the socio-spatial problems of underprivileged housing areas, is to demolish (part of) the housing area, and build new housing blocks. This forces inhabitants to move, and in a lot of cases they will not be able to return to the newly build houses, because they are more expensive. This method has been proven ineffective because it only moves the problem from one area to another. The main problem, inhabitants being unhappy with their living environment, and passers-by sometimes even afraid to go in the housing area, is not addressed with the current inhabitants in mind. To answer the research question two sub research questions on the use of public space were relevant. The first sub research question on which different roles in terms of social cohesion can different types of public spaces have produced the following answers. In underprivileged housing areas a large part of the leisure time is spent outside, on the street. It is therefore important that the inhabitants have places in the public space where they can meet. Secondly, to increase social safety, it is important for passers-by to understand what kind of neighbourhood they are in, who is living in the neighbourhood. This can be done by providing space in the public realm where indirect contact between passers-by and inhabitants can be established. But, more importantly, in order to enhance the social cohesion it is important that the inhabitants can actively claim the public space. Laying a claim on the public space can be achieved through having a front garden, or facade garden, but also in communal outdoor areas. This claim can be strengthened by handing over the management of (parts of) the public space to the inhabitants. In some streets, handing over the management is not advisable, because they are also used by other groups than the inhabitants, for shopping, school, or going from one important location to another. In these kinds of streets the management cannot be totally transferred to inhabitants, but letting inhabitants have a say in the design of the public space is already beneficial for the social cohesion. This means that in the neighbourhood the publicness of a street has to be defined according to the presence of public facilities and are therefor of public interest, or whether it is a street in which only inhabitants need to be. This results in a division of four levels of publicness. The second sub research question, how can public space be made easily adaptable to the users, but without great costs for the municipalities, was inspired by that fact that due to the current economic crisis municipalities and housing corporations have less funds to spend on revitalising urban living areas. In order to achieve the two goals, adapting the public space to the wishes of the inhabitants and without great costs for municipalities, cooperation with the inhabitants can be used. This cooperation can be in the form of letting inhabitants have a say in the design, which creates better support for the design. Another possibility is to let the inhabitants contribute in the execution of the public space. This can be done in the form of funds, but also, and perhaps more important in underprivileged housing areas where the inhabitants have little money, in the form of labour. When inhabitants have invested in the public space, this creates a bond between inhabitants and the space, and they will take better care of their public space. Therefor not only money in the short-term is saved, but also in the long-term. This also benefits the social cohesion between the inhabitants themselves and between the inhabitants and their living area. The location and the function of the street, the level of publicness, defines how much the inhabitants can be involved in the management of the public space. To test the found answers to the research question, the underprivileged housing area of the Schilderswijk and Stationsbuurt has been used. This is a housing area which was from the start build for the working-class. In first instance the building quality was deplorable, and from the eighties onwards many parts have been demolished and rebuild, but without one general plan. This created a living area with many different architectural styles. At the moment the quality of the buildings is adequate, but here as well people are not happy with their living environment. The neighbourhood has been analysed and the public space defined on its level of publicness, according to its function. For each level of publicness a design was made to show how the public space will look if designed in a manner that improves the social cohesion and the perceived safety. The combined designs create a network in which streets are legible and support the intended function, thereby increasing the perceived safety of the inhabitants of the neighbourhood and the passers-by.

Capacity development has become an increasingly hot topic in the water sector. The development of individual, organisational, institutional and even societal capacities is argued to be required to be able to addressing the present-day water challenges. From a natural resources management context, much literature is available on WHAT is required for capacity development: social learning in social networks, by means of which an integrated view of the challenges under consideration could be established, effective participation is enabled, and a resilient adaptive water system should be developed. However, HOW to achieve this is a much less considered topic in water related contexts and forms the main topic of this thesis, which centres on the following central research question: Which social network characteristics, with a focus on bonding and bridging mechanisms, facilitate social learning in capacity development networks that aim to address wicked water challenges? Combing insights from the Science Communications field and other related fields of study regarding knowledge management, social network analysis and social capital provided a framework on the important roles of bonding and bridging mechanisms in social networks and their benefits for social learning for capacity development. Bonding mechanisms are closely related to similarities between network members (also called relational proximity), while bridging mechanisms are on the contrary characterised by diversity on the relational level. Paradoxically both mechanisms, and both proximity and diversity, turn out to have important benefits for capacity development to address water challenges, which are often considered to be ‘wicked’ due to the involvement of great systems complexity, stakeholders diversity and uncertainty. Bonding mechanisms in social networks benefit the knowledge sharing efficiency, quality and frequency, resulting in a high potential for effective stakeholder participation. Cross-boundary bridges within such capacity development networks facilitate social learning by introducing novel and nonredundant knowledge into the network, enabling the establishment of in integrated multidisciplinary view on the water system and an adaptive water management approach. This thesis concludes that a careful balance is required between bonding and bridging on the network level, proximity and diversity on the relational level, and the ‘right’ personal characteristics on the individual level. It provides a scientific basis for practical insights and recommendation for capacity developers on how to design their capacity development projects.

Ecatepec, Mexico City presents the challenge of uniform, low-density peri-urban sprawl in the form of privately developed gated communities for the lower income groups. The main objective of this project is to propose alternatives to low-income housing, amplifying local skills and cultural consciousness, facilitating autonomy through local production and trade, as well as creating the possibilities of political manifestation through the strengthening of communal facilities. The wasteland in between the Las Americas gated community and the dried-out Lake Caracol is zoned for industrial use as in its current condition, it is not fit for housing developments due to soil and dust pollution. The proposal is to improve the environmental condition by making the 900 ha former lake productive through water-based agriculture with related processing facilities along its border. The proposed agricultural model is based on chinampas, a pre-Hispanic agricultural system with productive fields within a large body of water, which is still practiced in contemporary Mexico City. This will allow to urbanize the wasteland in order to propose an alternative model for urbanization with 14 000 units, approximately the same as Las Americas. The aim of the architectural design proposal is to develop a new model for urbanization that will counter previously mentioned urban problematics, based on higher urban density, meaning not only volumetric built density, but also mixed functions, less open space and rather more usable public space which will ultimately lead to an increase in density of social relations. Specifically, housing typologies will be developed that relate closely to the production and processing project mentioned above as well as other small-scale commercial activities. Seeing the low density and the mono-functionality of Las Americas, densification and introduction of new planned land uses within its suburban fabric becomes a key strategy. As the priority given to cars is what provides this low density, the proposal is to invade excessive public space of roads through the addition of housing as well as commercial functions. The final objective is to link the existing suburban fabric to the new mid-high density urban development that is proposed above.

For the Bachelor project IN3405 a social networking web application has been developed for the company Fenêtre.

The project's aim is the implementation of urban, architectonic and social strategies for mutual improvements of neighborhoods in Santiago de Chile.

This project is a discourse analysis of the local and metropolitan area, at the edge of the city, Amsterdam. It questions the forces which had the impact on its metro and local structures up until now, and tries to design a production masterplan (Land-Skap) as an invert fact of undesirable forces over new developments. The goal is to to improve the life of the local population of North Amsterdam.

The project I conducted this project for my graduation at the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering from Delft University of Technology. In 6 months I investigated the possibilities for Hyves users to have a stronger bond with the brand. Hyves is the biggest website in the Netherlands and is a Social Network Site (SNS). Social Network Sites are online communities on which users can create a profile and connect with other users. Furthermore there are possibilities to share photos and videos, post blogs, add different gadgets, and so on. It can be said that Hyves is the only significant Dutch SNS, but international competitors are coming up within the Netherlands. In order to make sure Hyves’ users stay loyal to them, they need to ensure they have a strong bond with them. As Hyves has grown exponentially since its foundation in 2004, the company has not had the time to focus on their users yet. This project is a start into this direction and investigates users’ opinions regarding the site, as well as to estimate their bond. User research results in 2 ideas for Hyves to create a stronger bond with their users. The process In order to investigate users’ opinions, different research techniques are used. The project starts with a segmentation of the users. Hyves as over 9 million users most of which are Dutch. This means they reach over 50% of the Dutch population above 13 years old. To get a grip on this big amount of users, different segments were made, accompanied with a persona for each of these segments. As each of these segments would need a different approach to be bonded with, 2 segments were chosen to further focus on. These were the Ignorant and Curious segments: both are not very frequent users (weekly - monthly) and are not strongly bonded with Hyves. The Ignorant user just randomly browses around on the site, sometimes just looking around at others’ profiles, sometimes posting content (e.g. uploading photos, sending messages). The Curious segment is more of a passive type of user, who just looks around and never really post anything themselves. Both segments use the site more to keep up to date of old acquaintances, and not to be in contact with their close friends. A focus group with participants from these 2 segments gave more and deeper information about these types of users. 7 users participated in the session, which gave rich information about these segments. With the results of the focus group I set up a questionnaire. This survey was put on Hyves, and 1810 users filled it out. Finally, with the results of the survey 2 ideas were further developed and accompanied with an implementation plan The results In general this project has shown that user research can lead to new, important insights for Hyves. Focus groups for example are a good way for Hyves to get an indication of their users’ wishes. Online surveys also are an appropriate technique for Hyves to use. To website is a perfect host to collect data, with the amount of users which visit Hyves everyday, data collection happens quickly. Hyves does already conduct surveys, but this could be done more often, and be more focussed on users. For this project it was found that the more often someone uses Hyves, the more bonded they are. Furthermore 2 of the main reasons for users to keep their Hyves profile is because it is an easy way to keep in contact with their friends, and because it is a good way to find back old acquaintances. Also there were little reasons for users to delete their profile. A too public profile and or if they use Hyves too little were the top 2 reasons. Also it was found that privacy is important to the users, which is a recent change for SNS, were users are becoming aware of the dangers of personal information online: 60% of the users has made their profile more private in the past year. At the same time Hyves users have difficulties setting their privacy: Half of the users thinks their profile is more private than it actually is. With these findings, 2 ideas were further developed: • Visual feedback of privacy settings - Give users examples of what their profile looks like for their friends, friends of friends, hyvers and everyone. This enables them to check their settings and set them to their preference. Being sure of your privacy settings creates a safer feeling on Hyves and might lead to more participation. • Division of friends into groups - Explore the possibilities of division of friends into groups. Users often reflect their offline life on Hyves, which sometimes creates difficulties. On Hyves there is no degree in friendships, while this could help users to feel more free online. The division of friends will give users the possibility to give more nuance to their online network. It enables them to fence off certain aspects of their profile for particular groups. Also it could be possible to easily stay up to date of all of your groups of friends. For these ideas an implementation plan was made, as well as a project proposal for Hyves.

Executive summery Phase 1: Design research - starting on page 11 This project deals with two very different stakeholders within Philips Research, namely the ambiPhone project team and the Human Interactions & Experience group. The ambiPhone team consists mainly of people from the Digital Signal Processing group and is responsible for the technological development of the system. The Human Interactions & Experience group focuses on doing research on User System Interactions, amongst which social interaction. For this project the setting of modern communication behavior and development is very important. Mobile phones and the internet are already in the main stream of communication. In the near future the development of the Machine 2 Machine (M2M) communication and therefore the economical exploitation of sensors will play a very important role in the ICT industry. With this in mind, the focus is on the possibility and opportunity for contact. This is an aspect of social connectedness that can very well be combined with the ambient telephone system. Phase 2: Context mapping - starting on page 25 11 people were asked to participate in a context mapping study. In this study participants were asked to draw their houses in order to simulate in home communication behavior. This confirmed that; communication consist of the factors share effort and control. People are very sensitive to these factors, finding the right balance between these factors is the main hurdle that any communication media has to master. Phase 3: Ideation - starting on page 33 The insights found suggest that using people’s mobile phone as a user interface seems the logical answer to the initial questions. It enables user’s remote control of the system, different types of connections are possible, people can always go back to a more private handheld conversation and it matches the current communication behavior perfectly. The mobile phone and M2M communication is going to play an even more important role over the coming years. Using the collective signals available due to the increase in sensorial implementations and mobile internet people’s social context can be assessed. This can be used to better understand the possibilities and opportunities to contact people. These ideas are conceptualized in the form of a request function and an intimate light connection. The request function assists people in making contact with other people by monitoring location, movement and the surroundings of people. The intimate light connection uses this information in order to create light representations in the other person’s living room. Phase 4: Validation - starting on page 43 The ideas developed in the previous page needed to be validated with users. Therefore a prototype was build for the ambient telephony idea, and a video and story boards were made to represent the social features. A study was conducted in the Experience Lab with 12 participants. These were observed while using the product and asked to reflect on the ideas presented. The outcome concerning the ambient telephony confirms the ideas on using people’s mobile phone as an UI. It also suggests that a clear origin of sound results in a participants focusing on the device. This disturbs the feeling of freedom to move and talk naturally as people talk towards the device. People tend to talk louder than normally. Regarding the social features, users stated that they needed to experience the system in order to give more complete feedback. The request function was considered a context aware reminder. This is appreciated but not related to the product anymore. The Light representations are seen as both an indication of availability and as an intimate light connection.(50:50) Not all the representations are appreciated. The system should give an indication of the others situation but not expose details, as not to violate people’s privacy. The surroundings are considered reasonable anonymous, it is a way of telling something about something but not using someone’s information. Phase 5: Product behavior - starting on page 59 In consultation with the ambiPhone team it was decided that the system would be a singular device and not a configuration with satellites. This is contradictory to the user feedback but a consumer insight from business perspective states that people do not want wires running through their house, which is consistent with the ambient lifestyle philosophy. The system uses the mobile phone signals surrounding the person you want to connect to in order to assess that personas surrounding. This is used to create color representations in the form of light within people’s living room. These colors are based on the light spectrum running from IR-UV or hot- cold. The basic color emotion association contrast is non culture dependant and creates a framework from which the user can easily understand the meaning of the representations of the product. Phase 6: Validation 2 - starting on page 71 Another prototype was build for the light features in order to conduct experiments with 6 people in their houses. The prototype was experienced in combination with a movie and storyboard in order to bring the context of the product to life. The feature was seen as applicable in two very different ways; an emotional and a practical implementation. This matches the possibility and opportunity for contact aspects of social connectedness. Concerning the practical, people think that it can help them to more smoothly create a connection with their relations. It can be used to create a more aware way of managing communication as it creates awareness of what is already known about the other person. However there is doubt about the accuracy of the representation. For the emotional implementation is more difficult to understand what the effect is of the emotional implementation. In order to fully reflect on this a fully functioning prototype should be tested over a longer period of time. The feature is appreciated by some users because it reminds you of the other and lowers the distance there is between people. However the continuous incoming data stream is also considered very obtrusive and stressful by a part of the participants, as it raises more questions. Phase 7: Product development - starting on page 81 The behavior as described and tested earlier is the outline of the product. This outline determines most of the components but the main component is still unclear, the housing. The appearance of the product should fit several form considerations namely; fitting the Philips Lifestyle product portfolio, ambient technology principles, acoustic properties, light dynamics and the user feedback received during the second user study. This insight was used to create several clay models. One of these models was selected to be further detailed into a product design. Phase 8: Epilogue – starting on page 97 Although more testing and development is needed, both the ambiPhone and the Social Colors show potential to be implemented into the market. For the ambiPhone user feedback is needed on the experience of different sound configurations for ambient phone conversations while doing mindless chores. For the Social Colors a completely working model will have to be tested over a longer period of time. Only this way can the effects of this type of product on people’s state of mind really be researched.

The Ubuntu Company (TUC) is a sustainable for-profit driven company that creates (fashionable), qualitative and responsible fashion products. TUC’s ambition is to create South African-inspired products that express social & environmental awareness. With their products TUC would like to trigger their consumer to become more interested in sustainability. This ambition was inspired by the Ubuntu philosophy. They believe that by positioning a humanitarian fashion brand on the market, they have made the first step to be part of this common link. If being fashionable means you can help others, then buying one of our products can be beneficial in innumerable ways Ubuntu: Together we can create a better world! - TUC: designs the products - They: people from neglected areas get offered a job the profit goes to local children’s project - You as a consumer can be good for yourself and for someone else The purpose of this graduation project is to advise TUC how their future as a sustainable company can be guaranteed. Therefore it is important to place the brand Plakkies good on the market and to create a strategy which will lead TUC towards a healthy and responsible company with a clear future vision. Plakkies(first product of TUC) is a social minded flip-flop fabricated by TUC’s factory established near the slums of Durban in South Africa. All the profit made returns for 100% to children’s projects in SA. During TUC’s first business year, TUC was mainly product-focused. As Plakkies was so strongly supported by its stakeholders, it was on the market, without knowing if TUC was a still an NGO-project or already a company. From the start, they were missing a ‘shared understanding’ about what their business model actually is, which is crucial for any company. An elaborated strategy , called the ‘three-phase strategy’, which will lead TUC towards a healthy and responsible company with a clear future vision is created. The consumers’ perception will make the difference more than before. Communication, transparency is one of the strongest differentiation elements for a humanitarian fashion brand. Brands will have to make more efforts, both for total customer perception and for Corporate Social Responsibility, in order to keep on deserving the consumers’ trust. Outline of the ’three-phase strategy’: Phase 1: Heal - The most important aspect is to become a healthy, trustful, transparent and a humanitarian fashion brand. Phase 2: Stabilize - The main focus of the stabilization phase lays on the development of their product portfolio and to introduce new products into the existing markets. Phase 3: Grow - The main focus of the Growth Phase lays in the geographic expansion of the brand. Now TUC is stabilized, they have the wished image, a stable team, a nice product portfolio, and are ready to grow.

In this report the results are presented of the graduation project to decrease social vulnerability with a design solution. The project was executed for the design agency BOOG in collaboration with Stichting DOEN. The graduation project is the final part of the master Design for Interaction at Delft University of Technology. Social vulnerability refers to a dynamic situation where people suffer from the lack of contacts and support, they do not experience social satisfaction. While their problems pile up they can get feelings of loneliness and eventually they can get socially isolated. In social vulnerability the balance between strength and burden is disturbed. People who experience social vulnerability have problems coping with the current situation and difficulties communicating, but are clearly dependent on others. They do not have their life on the role and have little to no influence on this situation. This makes them unhappy. The challenge for this project is to create a design that does not stigmatize the people in need of a solution. If the design is stigmatizing people will almost certainly not want to use the product. A life changing event can have a big influence on the social network. Multiple factors are involved to positively influence the new situation, such as personality and the living environment. As a designer it is possible to influence the environment to improve the living climate, increase the feeling of safety and connectedness with the environment, which can decrease social vulnerability. The group of social vulnerable people is very diverse and has different graduations of isolation. The decision was made to focus on people above 50 without a life partner who just went through a life changing event. This group needs support to prevent degeneration of the situation without the need for support from professionals. Nowadays interventions to decrease social vulnerability involve personal support, strategic advice, activities and service to provide people with the necessary information. Unfortunately many of these solutions confirm people’s vulnerability, therefore it will not reach the target group of this project. A solution needs to be generated that is accepted and can be used by both socially strong and vulnerable people and still has a positive effect on social vulnerability. Trends and developments reveal that trust in government is decreasing and the pressure on healthcare is increasing due to the ageing society and financial cut backs. This inspires people to start searching for solutions closer to home which they can influence themselves: a bottom-up approach. While professional support is often perceived as top-down and stigmatizing, the bottom-up approach is not and therefore very suitable to help the target group back on track. To improve the wellbeing of socially vulnerable people social connections need to be established. To establish social connections people need to meet others in person. This means that socially vulnerable people need to increase their exposure by getting out of their house more often with an open attitude to be able to approach and be approached by other people. The target group for this project is not capable of improving the situation on their own, they need to be supported to influence the situation in a positive way. This support needs to subtly activate them to start looking for new possibilities that can improve the situation. The interaction that is used to achieve this subtle activation is resembled by a gentle push on a swing. It supports people to get moving and gives them the tools to continue moving on their own. In a bottom-up approach it is very important to keep people motivated to actively participate. This motivation can be derived from people’s natural motivation to do good and be altruistic. Performing acts of kindness is a way of doing good. In this project the act of kindness that was searched for needed to have a low threshold to make it possible for the target group to join in. The act of kindness that was selected for this is the sharing magazines with other people living in the same apartment building. Giving away one of your magazines is an act of kindness, one is doing another person a favour by letting him or her enjoy the reading material as well. Becoming aware that such a small gesture can make other people happy provides the target group with new confidence that is necessary to get out of the vulnerable situation. It also provides a certain level of exposure: by sharing a magazine one shows what topic interests him. Becoming aware of the people with similar interests can lower the threshold of approaching them. Since many vulnerable people tend to stay in or close to their own living environment meeting new people nearby is an important step towards social contact. By performing acts of kindness and connecting with (the people in) the environment people’s attitude is opening up and that is exactly what is necessary to start looking for new possibilities to improve the situation to decrease social vulnerability.