Delft’s university has a lot to offer to its students. It’s not all about hardcore calculations and theoretical education because at the end of the day, the products on the market are created for the user. That requires certain know-how of what the people require and what they will find easy and comfortable to use. You can see that here a designer will play a major role. If you want to be one, the IO (Industrial design) faculty is just for you. The other creative place, from which a lot of cool urban project come out is the Boukunde (Architecture) faculty. We have two faculties especially for the creative people – where cool ideas spring to life.

Although IOers have a kind of unofficial competition with the architects about their outfits, coffee corners and their buildings I still believe the insides of the IO faculty are unique and fresh. Immediately after entering you find yourself in a spacious hall which incorporates workshop area and  coffee lounge. Above them are ‘hovering’ the 2 study area islands and the row with fast-rendering computers. The whole facility is full of little studios and chill corners, and the walls give special mood to every corridor, to every room.

To get inside information about the processes, studies and ‘little secrets going behind the scenes’ in IO, I met with Rado – a good friend of mine, who is currently doing one of the masters track. We did the interview at end of his ‘working’ day in a room divided in project ‘boxes’, where the creative process takes place. The walls of this ‘cubicles’ were full with sketches, brainstorm notes and colorful agendas. The design could be ‘felt in the air’.

Listening to the interview recording, reminded me of the friendly chat, the laughter we shared and all the exciting facts I learned about the study. Rado’s team is now in their second year of the master’s and busy every day of the week with IDP (Integrated Design Project) – the biggest one, which runs the whole semester.

The master profiles combine ‘forces’ during this period in order to design and prototype a product for a real company. There are about 20 teams from the 3 master tracks. The first, Strategic Product design concentrates on the marketing strategies, the economics, the company and how to put the product on the market. The second, Design for interaction is about the interaction process between people and product. They involve the user early in the process in order to understand “what, how, when and where is the target group doing what they do”, shared Barbara – one of Rado’s partners in the project. The third master, Integrated project design concentrates on the inside of the product, the engineering and technical side of the product.

The story of this two IO students was appealing and I kept on asking them questions about their divert experiences. Rado, like me, also came from Bulgarian university and I was curious if he also encountered the differences that struck me in the beginning.

R. : “Here, you go the first day to class and the professors tell you what are you suppose to deliver at the end of the project or semester. But they do not tell you how to do it. You should figure that on your own. In the Bulgarian is the opposite : they teach you a lot more theory. Working in groups, was also new for me. It took me one semester to get used to this different but interesting approach. We also have a lot of international students – from Spain, Germany, Turkey and Italy.  “. There are actually that many Italians in Design for Interaction, that some joke it is Design for Italians J

So what are you actually doing right now?

R. :“ We are working on a design concept of an urban wind turbine which is creating an information screen with the principal 'Persistance of Vision'. The LEDs are powered by the energy generated from the turbine. We  encountered various problems throughout the stages of the project. But finally we are working on the prototype and in 2 weeks we should be ready to demonstrate our product to the company. “

And I thought Design is easy, but after this talk I realized that they are busy, just in a different environment and on a different tempo. For example, once heads are stuffed with info, my friends from IO do a creativity boost activity – spinning rings around the chest.

And just to keep students motivated for real life interaction, the industrial design café opens every Wednesday evening and students from all the campus join to enjoy its beer. Rumor has it that there a lot of girls in IO (more than other faculties) and that is why it a popular place. But after my visits to Leiden, Utrecht and Amsterdam I am not easily impressed at those gatherings. But the grass spots are comfortoble for a beer and chat and the people are usually fun to talk to, more relaxed than in my Aerospace faculty or at least with a different 'glasses' through which they look upon life.

But I am certainly looking for the big yearly festival this Friday. The faculty is going to be transformed into party place and more than 1000 students are going to attend.

This place …..

Will become like this!