Identity
I approach ID spatiality and relationally. As a 3rd culture designer, having grown up across multiple cultures without a fixed reference point, I am comfortable working in the in-between, where clarity meets ambiguity, and function meets emotion. My goal is not to explain through design, but to question.
This sensitivity is rooted in how I understand objects gaining meaning through context. A piece of furniture influences how a room feels, how people move through it, and what they notice or overlook. Furthermore, I think through modularity. It also explains why I am drawn to the inherent irony of design as something inseparable from both art and engineering. My STEM background still informs how I think about feasibility and precision, but today it serves as a foundation that allows me to focus both on how objects are experienced rather than just how they function.
I see the designer as an artist for hire. The object belongs to its context, users, and system rather than to the designer. Designing means translating qualities into something that exists on behalf of others, while being aware of stakeholders and constraints, requiring B&E expertise.
Making is central to me. I approach design research through prototyping and testing, using iteration and reflection to understand. Research is therefore not separate from design, but embedded in the process. This resonates with the Japanese philosophy and lifestyle of shokunin(職人), where pride and dedication to tools and materials are central. At the same time, I use sensing and simple computational tools to translate intangible qualities into physical experience, where MDC becomes a means to shape perception rather than an end in itself.
This philosophy explains both my strengths and my challenges as a designer. I take on integrative roles, connecting separate islands into one whole. Concurrently, this tendency to take responsibility can lead to overextension, something I am learning to manage through clearer boundaries. This understanding guides how I choose projects, collaborate in teams, and continue developing as a designer.
Vision
Objects are actors within environments that shape spatial experience; my vision is to design for perception influence without relying on spectacle, explanation, or digital mediation. I am interested in familiar everyday objects that blend into their surroundings and reveal their impact through lived experience. In this sense, I connect to critical design in a way, not through provocation but through perception shifting.
Good design can become cheap, bad design will always be expensive. Poorly designed objects cost space, attention, comfort, maintenance, and energy over time, while well designed objects justify their presence by how naturally they fit into their context and how little they demand from people. Sustainability is inseparable from this. For me, it is not only about efficiency or optimization, but about how objects age and how long they remain meaningful within their environment. Material aesthetics are therefore a core part of contextual design. Raw finishes, honest materials, and visible aging allow objects to gain patina and become part of their surroundings rather than stay shiny. This reflects my interest in craftsmanship and material understanding, where time and wear are a design feature.
The designer is an artist for hire; I am cautious of design that exists mainly to impress other designers. Design succeeds only when it is understood intuitively by those who live with it. Stripping an object down to its essentials is far more difficult than adding to it, yet this is the direction I believe design should move toward. Therefore, I see design as a silent but radical tool, like the printing press, pictograms, or braille, whose power lies in seamless integration with everyday life. My utopian vision for design is a world where all objects and experiences are like pencils and paperclips, iconic, perfectly suited to their purpose, and always in the background of our attention.
This draws me to environments where objects are part of spatial experiences rather than isolated products, such as lighting design studios, exhibition and spatial design practices, and experience driven product studios where material, context, and atmosphere are inseparable.
Ultimately, I want to design systems that people live with rather than simply use, and whose presence quietly improves quality of life. This vision directly informs my FBP, where I aim to develop a familiar object that subtly shifts perception within a real spatial context.
Me, circa 2008 looking at the rocks rather than the mountains
PAST
From a young age, I was interested in how objects occupy and define space. Building with Lego or constructing cities in Minecraft was less about the individual elements and more about how parts could be arranged into coherent wholes. This early engagement already reflected a form of modular thinking, even if not academically.
I moved between many hobbies, including cooking and building custom keyboards. In hindsight, these activities shared a similar structure: separate parts brought together into functional and systematic compositions. Despite frequently shifting interests (later understood after being diagnosed with ADHD), there was always a constant: I was drawn to making things that had a purpose within a specific context.
This interest initially led me to start in Mechanical Engineering. However, I realized my interest lay more in form, presence, and spatial relationships than in mechanisms and calculations, which led me to transfer to Industrial Design.
In my 1st year of ID, I was introduced to design as an iterative and reflective process (RTDP) rather than purely problem-solving. Frameworks became ways of thinking. I developed a foundation in C&A through form exploration and iteration, while building practical skills in T&R in Projects 1 and 2.
During my 2nd year, my curiosity often pulled me into what I now recognize as “side quests.” I gravitated toward anything that seemed interesting. At the same time, saying yes too often led to overcommitment and eventually burnout. This experience became a turning point, making me aware that my natural curiosity and enthusiasm also needed boundaries.
However, curiosity has also led me to unexpected opportunities. One day, I was in a long line waiting for lunch. With a loss in interest in standing still any longer, I gravitated towards what looked to provide me with dopamine. Coincidentally, this was the day that student teams had information stands throughout the campus. One conversation led to an office visit, then led to me joining team IGNITE as a designer for GLOW Light Festival'24, and a year later I became a board member. Through this, I learned how design operates within teams, organizations, and stakeholder networks, experiencing B&E in practice.
These first two years shaped the foundation of my PI&V: a designer interested in how objects exist in space, how parts relate to wholes, and how making and reflecting are inseparable from thinking.
My first group project in university, making the OG-9 multiped robot as a part of Mechanical Engineering's 4GA40 Multiped Robot course
Present
Entering the 3rd year did not feel like a fresh start, but like halting to a sudden stop after going too fast for too long. The burnout I experienced at the end of year 2 had taken away much of the excitement I previously felt toward new opportunities. Internships felt overwhelming rather than inspiring. Instead of pushing outward, I chose something that felt familiar and manageable: the Innovation Space Bachelor End Project.
At the time, this did not feel like a positive choice. I did not particularly enjoy the ISBEP, and I was aware that I was not producing work at the level I knew I was capable of. My motivation fluctuated, my engagement came in bursts, and I often felt detached into a slump from the project.
In hindsight, this period became important for a different reason. Despite my reduced energy and motivation, the way I approached the project, the aspects I was drawn to, and the role I naturally took within the team were still fully aligned with the direction my design vision had been moving toward. Even when I was not at my best, my instincts as a designer remained consistent. This helped me realize that my changing viewpoint toward design was not temporary or project-dependent; it became a part of me.
Around the same time, reading "What Design Can’t Do: Essays on Design and Disillusion" by Silvio Lorusso triggered a critical reflection on my education and on design’s role. I began questioning whether designers often design mainly for other designers, and what design should mean in everyday contexts. This reflection resonated with the quiet shift already happening in my interests.
I also noticed that many of my projects gravitated toward sustainability themes. Yet my focus was rarely on numerical optimization. Instead, I was interested in how people become aware of their environment and their relationship to it. In these projects, T&R and MDC became tools to shape experience and awareness, connecting strongly to my understanding of U&S.
Through my interest in hiking and brands like Klättermusen, this shift also appeared in my graphic design and material thinking. I moved away from strict minimalism toward what I describe as “maximalist minimalism,” where expression, modularity, and clarity coexist. I began valuing materials that carry their own visual and tactile qualities, linking sustainability to how materials age and belong within context. Moreover, my design language also shifted, adding more personality such as the use of the fonts backspace round and fakir for this portfolio.
Within the ISBEP, this way of thinking quietly surfaced, even when my motivation did not. The project approached festivals as temporary systems with high energy demand, structured around feasibility, desirability, viability, and ethicality. Because I tend to jump ahead into ideas, I set a goal to follow this structure step-by-step: problem framing, stakeholder mapping, concept mapping, and iterative evaluation. This external structure helped me maintain progress despite fluctuating motivation, strengthening my professional skills in planning and organization.
Through the concept map and stakeholder map, I learned how design decisions are shaped by regulations, economics, and social factors. The project shifted from designing a product to designing a system, deepening my understanding of U&S.
Working in a team with ME and SI students, I naturally took on the role of integrator. I translated technical ideas back to the shared problem definition, visualized system relations, and ensured coherence between feasibility and experience. This role connected strongly to B&E, especially during presentations such as the Dragon’s Den pitch, where I structured the narrative of the project.
As the project evolved from kinetic floor ideas into a modular system combining kinetic energy and solar fabric, I saw my own interests reflected in the outcome. We were no longer designing isolated components, but a spatial and systemic intervention.
Prototyping reinforced this realization. Rather than optimizing technical performance, we created a 1:20 scale model and an interactive Arduino setup that allowed the system to be understood through physical interaction. Here, T&R and MDC supported embodied understanding.
Feedback from my coach highlighted my reflective attitude, collaboration skills, and ability to support structure and communication within the team. At the same time, moments of reduced communication showed me how essential consistency is in interdisciplinary work.
Through this process, I developed a stronger appreciation for design research. Testing ideas, learning from what does not work, and understanding why something fails became as valuable as successful outcomes.
What I initially experienced as a period of low motivation now stands out as the moment where I recognized that, even in a slump, my direction as a designer remained consistent. Rather than seeing the ISBEP as a project I did not enjoy, I now see it as the experience that helped me recognize my changing viewpoint toward design and marked the beginning of moving out of that slump with a clearer sense of who I am becoming as a designer.
Future
Looking ahead, I want to continue exploring my current design vision. I am particularly interested in how familiar objects, ones that already exist in everyday environments, can be subtly altered to change how we experience. This direction is reflected in several ideas I am considering for my FBP.
One concept is an analog clock that looks ordinary but measures months, days, and hours instead of seconds, slowly revealing a different sense of time through lived experience. Another explores a camera-like anti camera that records qualities of light rather than images, translating them into abstract light and sound. A third investigates a wall-mounted loom that weaves daily emotions into a textile over the course of a year, turning experience into a wearable diary.
Building on this direction, my goal during the FBP is to develop one of these concepts into a fully realized, testable prototype. I want to validate the idea through user testing and contextual evaluation, ensuring that the object does not only function technically but meaningfully influences how it is experienced within a space.
After graduation, I aim to start in a studio where objects, space, and experience are inseparable, such as lighting, exhibition, or experience-driven design practices. In these first years, my goal is to contribute to projects where materials, context, stakeholders, and atmosphere come together in real spatial environments, allowing me to translate my way of thinking into professional practice.
As I gain experience, I want to move beyond supporting execution toward influencing the conceptual direction of projects. Within a few years, I aim to have led a project from concept to realization, further shaping a design identity grounded in material awareness, spatial sensitivity, and experiential thinking.
In the longer term, I see myself in a position where I can help define project directions and design philosophy more independently, either within a studio or through a practice of my own. Across all stages, the constant remains designing objects and interventions that shape how people experience the spaces they inhabit.