Course case study · Material Exploration

Get Your Hands Dirty: Material Exploration as a Competition

A 10-day studio module where design students stopped deciding what a material is, and started listening to what it does.

In brief

Problem: First-year students force materials into forms they have already decided on.
Approach: I rebuilt a 10-day module as a team competition: scoring that rewards deeper discovery, one phone per team, and no points without proof.
Outcome: 17 teams, 9 materials, documented discoveries and working products chosen by class vote.
Learning: In this run, scoring seemed to make the depth of a discovery visible to students. Whether it caused deeper exploration is what I’m now studying.

Course: Material Exploration, B.Des first year
Format: 10 full-day studio classes, two sections, 17 competing teams
Materials: GI sheet, MDF, bamboo, wood, acrylic sheet, wire mesh, plaster of Paris, sun board, clay
Structure: 4-day Exploration Challenge, then 6-day Product Challenge
My role: Course design, rules and scoring system, live leaderboard, daily reviews and mentoring

The problem

First-year students usually treat a material as a means to an end. They arrive with an idea, pick a material that looks right, and force it into shape. They rarely let the material change their mind.

I wanted the opposite. The goal I wrote on the board on day one was simple:

Understand how the material talks to you, and develop an intuition for it.

The aim was to do something extraordinary with a material property, not with a pre-decided form.

Turning a module into a game

I redesigned the module as a competition, with rules built to push behaviour in a specific direction.

Teams and a live leaderboard. Each section was split into predetermined groups that competed on a leaderboard updated in real time, on the whiteboard and in a shared sheet. Teams chose their own names, and meaningful names earned a 5-point bonus: Quaternery, Metamorphosis, Beyond Matter, Grit Force, Material Alchemy, Trust the Process and more.
Materials by choice and by chance. Each team picked one material and drew two more by lottery. Working with a material you didn’t choose is where most of the surprises came from.
Swapping costs you. Exchanging a material cost 10 points; adding one cost 15. Teams could still do it, if they believed the new material would earn back more than it cost.
One phone per team. All other phones were handed in to the lab head. The one phone was only for documenting work and milestones, which kept attention on the bench.
No proof, no points. Only the written record and photos or physical samples counted. Verbal accounts earned nothing.

Scoring as teaching

The rubric was the curriculum. Each tier asked for a deeper kind of looking.

1 · Obvious2 pts
Direct properties and behaviours: it bends, it floats, it’s see-through.
2 · Un-obviousup to 5
Indirect or modified behaviours revealed through manipulation.
3 · Complexup to 10
Interesting combinations and experiments across materials.

Discoveries were judged on three words: Creative, Revealing, Compelling.

Students explored through all five senses (see, hear, feel, smell, taste) using existing and improvised tools, and manipulated materials chemically, mechanically and by combining them with light, water, heat and sound.

One rule made the combination tier competitive: if a rival team presented a similar combination insight, you lost those points. Teams started protecting their discoveries, and hunting for the ones no one else would think of.

Evidence over talk: the record format

Every team kept a running record on paper in a fixed format:

S.NoMaterialProperty / behaviour revealedResult: photo, video or sampleSteps and intentions

The last column mattered most. Writing down why you tried something turns accidental discoveries into repeatable ones. In the review stage I framed this as “doing and finding” versus “intentful doing”, and asked teams to map their work as a branching tree where each node is a milestone.

Beyond Matter’s handwritten table translating the class brief into their process — Beyond Matter · How one team rewrote the brief in their own words.

Transformers’ notebook page listing simple properties of acrylic sheet — Transformers · A record page: obvious properties first, experiments after.

From discovery to product

The second half of the module moved from properties to products, with its own scoring:

See how products were scored

At least 7 alternative ideas showing creative material useup to 40
Justifying how the product uses the material propertyup to 25
Meeting committed deadlines (teams set their own timeline; beating it earned points, missing it cost them)up to 30
Completion, finish and workingup to 65
The design journey story10
Class vote for best product on day 10100

For ideation I gave every team the same frame: no idea is a bad idea, it might inspire a great one; and one idea is not enough. Ideas were mapped on an axis from originality to abstraction, by source: an existing product, an existing product reimagined, a product category, the user’s life, or something that just occurs to you. Teams then narrowed down through “idea bouncing”:

~25 ideas7 shortlisted1 chosen

Mentoring at the table

Most of my teaching happened in quick sketches beside each team.

See six examples

Acrylic clutch purse. Soft-heating the sheet in repeated passes instead of once; why MDF breaks as a former; how the latch should work; asking about usability and occasion before looks.
A clay piece using capillary action. Splitting the work into detailed functional design and testing; comparing kiln-fired, normally dried and fine-art clay slabs; warning that MDF in a damp setup invites fungal growth.
A pen designed part by part. Breaking a pen into nib, refill, grip, stem, cap, weight distribution, connections and ink, and exploring inks from bamboo, coffee and fragrance.
Puppets in clay, bamboo and wire mesh. Three aims in order: something children would buy, characters with family relationships and a story, then something sellable, cheap and quick to make.
Wearable art in acrylic, bamboo and POP. Letting a story drive the form, and balancing “story power” with “aesthetic power”.
A food and medicine keeper for mothers and hostel students. Context first (who and what), then functional requirements (temperature range), then cost, durability and looks.

What students made

Beyond Matter

Bamboo · clay · wire mesh

Their name came from their approach: not judging bamboo by its appearance, but changing, testing and combining it until its behaviour suggested design directions. Their loop was observe → change → notice → connect to a design possibility.

Discoveries included the different sounds of a node and a hollow section when tapped, how scraping the outer skin reveals fibre and changes water absorption, and bending bamboo after soaking and heating. Combining clay with salt, they found they could control shrinkage, create self-forming surface textures, and re-plasticise dried clay with water, making reworkable clay construction possible.

Design directions: a glue-free self-locking bamboo joint (node, slit and tapered cut), a foldable slit-bamboo screen or lampshade, a bamboo water channel, a tactile surface library, and a sound object built from nodes and hollows. Their product work led to a puppet story with fully developed characters, and a drawing station: an adjustable MDF board, wire-mesh reference holder and storage, and a clay paper stopper.

Handwritten page listing creative directions: self-locking bamboo joint, foldable bamboo screen, water channel, tactile surface library — Creative directions: a self-locking joint, a foldable screen, a water channel and a tactile surface library.

Beyond Matter’s intro page explaining their name and approach — Intro: observe → change → notice → connect.

Notes on tapping a node versus a hollow section of bamboo — Tapping a node vs a hollow section.

Notes on combining water, heat and bending — Combinations: water + heat + bending.

Notes on a sound object made from bamboo nodes and hollows — A sound object from nodes and hollows.

Notes on salt pressed into wet clay leaving textures — Salt + clay: the surface grows its own pattern.

Notes on salt controlling clay shrinkage and re-plasticising dried clay — Clay + salt: controlled shrinkage.

Illustration of the drawing station with MDF board, wire-mesh holders and clay paper stoppers — The drawing station: MDF board, wire-mesh holders, clay stoppers.

A student shaping a bamboo section on a belt sander — Shaping bamboo on the belt sander.

A shaped and scorched bamboo section beside the team’s notes — A shaped, scorched bamboo section.

Metamorphosis

Bamboo · GI sheet

They listed nearly 30 properties of GI sheet alone (magnetic, conductive, formable, perforable, able to store energy when bent) before turning them into Laser Maze Challenge: a two-player game where each player steers a coloured laser through a maze of GI sheet hurdles on a bamboo frame to hit the centre target first. It came with written rules, timed and night modes, and a “first to three wins” series.

Laser Maze Challenge poster showing the GI sheet maze on a bamboo frame, how to play, materials and dimensions — Laser Maze Challenge: the final game, with rules, materials and night mode.

Sketch of the maze layout with blockers, splitters and reducers — Early maze layouts: blockers, splitters, reducers.

Sketch of two player zones, a common zone and goal mirrors — Player zones and goal mirrors.

Handwritten list of 22 GI sheet properties — GI sheet, property by property.

Handwritten table of bamboo properties — Bamboo properties.

Handwritten rules page for the game — The written rules.

Transformers

Acrylic sheet · plaster of Paris

Careful recording of how acrylic bends when heated and holds its new shape, how sanding creates a texture that scatters light, and how plaster of Paris behaves when mixed with sand or glue instead of only water.

Notebook page of acrylic experiments: heating, sanding, burning — Acrylic: heated, sanded, burnt.

Notebook page of plaster of Paris properties and experiments with sand water and glue water — Plaster of Paris: simple, then experimental.

Design Alchemy

The best-documented timeline: dated photos from day one (17 September) through exploration (23–24 September) to the finished product (4 November).

A student examining a cut acrylic sheet at the workbench — **17 Sep** · Day one

Clay worked into swirls and a ball on a plaster surface — **23 Sep** · Exploring

A small wooden piece painted with a lilac swirl pattern — **4 Nov** · Final

Quaternery

Section 2’s top team on the leaderboard, with 380 points at review, and the team whose photo timestamps show work continuing past midnight.

Clay coils held in an open hand — Clay coils, photographed just before 1 am.

Two GI sheet pieces perforated in different hole patterns — Perforation patterns in GI sheet.

More from the studio

See five more teams

A perforated clay vessel — **Trust the Process** · Perforated clay.

A drilled and scorched wooden strip bound to GI sheet with wire — **Material Alchemy** · Wood, GI sheet and wire.

Wood shavings with foil flakes in an MDF tray — **Grit Force** · Shavings and foil.

The shadow of a bent acrylic piece projected on a wall — **Fusion 4** · Acrylic in light and shadow.

A small clay figure held in a palm — **Material Cipher** · A clay figure.

Outcomes

17 teams across two sections, 9 materials, 10 studio days
Every claim backed by a written record and a photo, video or sample
Working products and prototypes, chosen by class vote on the final day

Reflection

The game was a means, not the point. On the leaderboard a 2-point observation and a 10-point discovery sat side by side, so students could see the gap between noticing and really noticing. The strongest teams weren’t the ones who knew the most at the start; they tended to be the ones who stayed curious longest and wrote down why they tried things. Whether the scoring itself produced that is the question my current research asks.

Thesis case study · M.Des, NID, 2015–2020 · Sponsored by ISRINGHAUSEN GmbH & Co. KG

Re-imagining the Trucking Experience in Europe, 2030

The brief asked for the interior of a future autonomous truck cabin. The research kept asking a prior question: why would anyone want to be a trucker in 2030?

Thesis complete · Being re-read in 2026 · Some chapters still being recovered

In brief

Problem: Europe will still need truckers in 2030, but fewer people want the job. A better cabin doesn’t touch why they leave.
Approach: Two lenses in parallel: how European freight works and is changing, and what the work feels like, moment by moment.
Outcome: Consurge, a future work culture for small trucking companies: truckers as a connected team that trains and grows together.
Learning: The cabin was the last layer to design, not the first.

Programme: M.Des, Lifestyle Accessory Design, National Institute of Design, 2015–2020
Sponsor: ISRINGHAUSEN GmbH & Co. KG, Lemgo, Germany
Guide: Amresh Panigrahi
Context: Long-haul trucking in the EU, 2030, Level 4 autonomy
Methods: Industry reports and literature, force mapping and prediction, interviews, forums, emotional journey maps, trends, scenarios

The brief, and the question under it

The original brief was “to design the trucker journey experience of a long haul autonomous truck operating in the E.U. in the year 2030”: a scenario, a journey and the interiors of the future cabin.

Early on I wrote the question that changed the project: on what basis should that experience be built? A cabin can be comfortable and still sit inside a job people are leaving. So the work widened from the cabin to the work around it.

Process overview diagram with system, journey and human layers leading to scenario, journey and interiors — **Thesis p. 12** · The process as I planned it: system, journey and human layers, then scenario → journey → interiors.

Two lenses

A systemic lens followed how freight moves through brokers, dispatchers and carriers, and traced forces across six areas (people, economics, policy, logistics, infrastructure and technology) forward to 2030: platooning and relay driving, more small fleets, reskilling for Logistics 4.0, and stricter rules against social dumping.

A humanistic lens asked what truckers and dispatchers expect, fear and put up with, through interviews, forums and surveys, and how that might shift.

Wall of printed industry reports annotated with sticky notes — **Working wall** · Industry reports, printed and coded by hand before the forces were mapped.

What the work feels like

Five emotional journey maps followed ordinary moments: a breakdown, a meal, a night’s sleep, a day’s driving, and waiting at a shipper. Each marks where feelings rise and fall, and what changes for a new, experienced, female or posted driver.

Journey map of a trucker arriving, waiting and loading at a shipper, with feelings marked positive, neutral or negative — **Thesis pp. 60–61 · J5 At shipper** · From the last stretch to exit: vague directions, waiting, loading, and who feels what.

What the maps and interviews kept showing:

Two worlds. The system on paper (schedules, rules, routes) and the culture truckers actually live in rarely meet.
Dispatch as the only link. For many drivers the company is one dispatcher, and instructions arrive as orders, not conversations.
Freedom turned into confinement. Independence once drew people to trucking; weeks in a small cabin can now feel like the opposite.
Respect without aspiration. People say trucking matters, but few want it for themselves.

Cause and effect mesh linking reasons, behaviours and feelings for truckers, dispatchers and others — **Thesis p. 42 · Cause & effect mesh** · Why → what → thus, read through my own experience of the journeys.

A revised brief

Trucking needed an image shift that was earned, not branded: when the worker and the work environment change, the image will change.

Revised design brief and its three objectives — **Thesis p. 51** · The revised brief: a genuine journey experience built on a purposeful company vision.

Futures, and a direction

Four scenarios combined company size, work type, route length and level of autonomy. My working notes record choosing the first: small cooperative companies on shorter, dynamic routes, with platooning, relay driving and redistributed roles.

Four scenario fans showing features, truck, company, work, technology and movement — **Thesis pp. 92–93 · Scenarios** · Each scenario sets the truck, company, work, technology and movement.

Three design directions came out of it. I chose the one that served the most stakeholders and was most plausible: a small-company culture offering wider logistics services to new, smaller clients. A direction built around refugee and migrant drivers had the most impact potential, but the research a sensitive concept needs wasn’t feasible in the time I had; a third went too far into the future to ground.

SWOT of the chosen design direction and its statement — **Thesis p. 104 · Design direction (chosen)** · Strengths, opportunities and concerns, and why the other two were set aside.

Consurge

Consurge is a work culture before it is a product: a fellowship on cabins, a small team that trains together for growth.

Teams, not lone drivers. A small team works across several trucks as one connected unit.
Compeer. A role that joins trucker and dispatcher work, so field knowledge and planning sit with the same people.
Mentoring. Drawing on the guru–shishya tradition: an experienced mentor guides a small group, and learning happens on the job.

Before drawing any form I wrote short stories of the team at work (a newcomer joining, a misunderstanding resolved, a breakdown handled together) and broke each into the touchpoints the cabin would have to support. The feelings came first: confident, comfortable, moving forward, assured. Then how to get there: equipped, supported, kept up to date. Then the work structure, the interactions, and last of all the form.

Concept details, the journey story and the cabin interiors are being recovered from the final thesis files and will be added here.

Form, after the thesis

I kept working on the truck’s exterior afterwards, in Rhino, SolidWorks and sketch-overs on renders: a personal exploration, not part of the submitted work.

Digital sketch-over on a rendered truck cab, January 2022 — **Jan 2022** · Sketching over a render.

Jul 2023 · Side-profile variations.

Looking back (2026)

Working notes

Re-reading the thesis in 2026, with ChatGPT and Claude as sparring partners, I’ve been pulling out its tensions. These are working ideas, not thesis findings:

Alone, yet interdependent. Drivers work alone but rely on a wide network.
Respected, yet undesirable. Valued as work, rarely chosen as a career.
Protected, yet restricted. Safety rules and monitoring that reduce felt autonomy.

The newest thread is narrower. Drivers and dispatchers see different parts of the same trip, so what stops a driver’s knowledge from becoming the company’s action? It feeds my current work on what a long-haul driver perceives and infers across a whole journey.

How I teach

Usual Ones: an informal learning collective

Self Understanding: a mentoring programme

Courses Taught

Get Your Hands Dirty: Material Exploration as a Competition

The problem

Turning a module into a game

Scoring as teaching

Evidence over talk: the record format

From discovery to product

Mentoring at the table

What students made

Beyond Matter

Metamorphosis

Transformers

Design Alchemy

Quaternery

More from the studio

Outcomes

Reflection

Drawing light as something you can reason about

Making a set course teachable

What people do, and why

Studying my own studio teaching

Re-imagining the Trucking Experience in Europe, 2030

Small studies

Re-imagining the Trucking Experience in Europe, 2030

The brief, and the question under it

Two lenses

What the work feels like

A revised brief

Futures, and a direction

Consurge

Form, after the thesis

Looking back (2026)