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ISHIKA MUKHERJEE +44 7840227017 ar.ishika.mukherjee@gmail.com linkedin.com/in/i-mukherjee issuu.com/ishikamukherjee mydaintydiaries.wordpress.com
INTERESTS
LANGUAGES
SKILLS
I’m a creative, detail oriented Design Innovation student, currently pursuing my masters in the Glasgow School of Art. A sustainable designer with a strong understanding of the fields of art, design as well as architecture, I’m also self motivated, innovative and organised. I’m currently looking to work with a team that is pushing the industry forward.
EDUCATION
DESIGN WORK EXPERIENCE
M. Des Design Innovation & Environmental Design Glasgow school of art (Glasgow) 2018-2019 B. Architecture The University School of Design (Mysore) 2011-2016 Community Energy Volunteer | Glasgow 2017-2018 Reliance Health Insurance Product Designer | Mumbai, India 2018 Hemal Surti Architects Architect | Mumbai, India 2016-2017
Art Architecture Design Fashion Feminism Humanitarianism Lifestyle Popular Culture SEO Social Relationships Sustainable Design Travelling Writing
The Architect’s Office Architect | Goa, India 2016 Naksha Builders Consultant Architect | Mysore, India 2015 Aequinox Architects Architect | Bangalore, India 2014
OTHER WORK EXPERIENCE
English Hindi Bengali Spanish Design Research Ethnography Sketching Planning Architectural drafting (manual, AutoCAD) Physical model making Digital model making (Sketch Up, Revit) 3D Rendering (VRay, Lumion) Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, InDesign,Illustrator) Microsoft Office Prezi
GUUNICEF Social Media Coordinator | Glasgow 2018 Fish Do It Consultants LPP Design Writer/Editor/Curator | Mumbai, India 2017-2018 Fish Do It Consultants LPP Event organiser | Mumbai/Delhi/Goa, India 2018 Plansform Freelance Writer | Mumbai, India 2017-2018 Hidden Reflections Event Manager | Mysore, India 2014-2015 Hidden Reflections Artist | Mysore, India 2014-2015
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN/SERVICE DESIGN | NHS 24 SOCIAL ARCHITECTURE DESIGN/SOCIAL DESIGN | RESCHOOL ARCHITECTURE DESIGN | AROGYA SERVICE DESIGN / DESIGN FICTION | REIMAGINING THE VISA SYSTEM BRANDING | DESIGN BUBLEGUM PRINT DESIGN | PROJECT PROCESS JOURNAL
The amalgamation of ideas, elements, art and functionality, invested in harmony, gives way to the phenomenon of design; and it’s capacity to manufacture greatness, even in it’s minutest forms.
01
Environmental Design/ Service Design
NHS24 SOCIAL Live Project with NHS24
AN OVERVIEW Under the large umbrella of NHS Scotland, NHS 24 provides tele-health and tele-care services to the population of Scotland. The key role of the organization is to provide out-of-hours and emergency aid to people, so as to not overwhelm the A&E. Although the NHS offers a large number of features, and as well as touch-points, they could be enhanced and expanded. The brief asks to explore people’s behavior and interactions surrounding access to NHS 24, and learn how daily personal and social behavior shapes their health and wellbeing. With this knowledge, we are to speculate how NHS can expand it’s services beyond just the “point of need”, to encompass a social dimension that accounts of tangible improvement in prevention strategies and self-managed wellbeing.
UNDERSTANDING WELLBEING IN EVERYDAY LIFE Exploring habits led us to understand the incentives and barriers to motivation and consequently, wellbeing. The three most influential factors that drove wellbeing seemed to be people, place and things. Conducting surveys with the general population, and interviews with medical preffessionals in the field; it was interesting to note that most people associate wellbeing with human interaction, be it spending quality time with friends and family, or even going to work and socialising with co-workers. Another theme that often emerged was how much people related wellbeing with nature – going out, the weather, their pets; and the lack of wellbeing with the lack of exposure to nature.
OPPORTUNITIES AND INSIGHTS Working closely with NHS24, we mapped out the tensions and therefore opportunities in ingraining wellbeing in one’s day to day life.
Based on these opportunities and following conversations, we understood that while NHS24 was very vast and competent, there was a lack in “Last Mile Care”. To bridge the same we conceptualised, what if NHS came to you, instead of you calling NHS? Subsequently, we drafted out the framework of a new system that could work on the same concept.
THE CURRENT NHS24 FRAMEWORK
A NEW FRAMEWORK FOR NHS24 The framework had 2 parts – the anonymised public part and the personalised private part. ANONYMISED PUBLIC ASPECT The data from each person’s personal health profile will be tracked anonymously by the NHS. The same will be fed to the NHS local board, where they will be able to analyse the public health trends of different communities. Based on the same, if and when they find critical data, they will be able to collaborate with local bodies such as schools, institutions, local departmental stores etc to administer preventative measures. PERSONALISED PRIVATE ASPECT The NHS also would track each person’s personal health inforation on a regular basis. Based on their health results, in case of non-critical issues, the NHS24 could act as a lifestyle manager giving the user tips for a better, healthier lifestyle depending on their location, economic condition etc, via emails, sms or phonecalls. Whereas if the data found turns out to be critical, the data will directly be send to the triage, where the analysis of the user’s heath report would be able to confirm an appointment to the GP, a referal, the nearest pharmacy or the A&E. Very similar to the current NHS24 helpline, the major differnce would be that the user would not need to assess their own situation and take a call, NHS would do that for them.
ANONYMISED PUBLIC ASPECT
PERSONALISED PRIVATE ASPECT
The touchpoints empower the citizens and healthcare providers to achieve individual wellbeing by breaking the healthcare information monopoly. Broadly, there would be 2 different kinds of touchpoints, “modifiable” touchpoints – those that users will choose to interact with and feed in their personal information, and the second “non-modifiable” touchpoints, that would contain updated healthcare information for each patient/citizen regardless of their interaction with the same.
The patient/citizen would be able to access/interact with all of their healthcare information via id cards linked to their CHI numbers.
The system would act as a personalised lifestyle coach in case on non-critical diagnoses, or direct the patient to the appropriate specialist in case of a critical diagnosis. All of the same would be run and operated by AI, and would therefore more efficient and economic.
The plausible partners that would help feed in the information and would have access to the information, creating a holistic secure safety net for each citizen.
The system would ensure, not only healthy people, but a healthier nation as a whole. The exchange of data would be carried out by X-Road – an IT solution improving accessibility and availability of public service.
The whole system is designed to take care of all five factors contributing to a person’s wellbeing, thereby ensuring not only the utmost wellbeing of citizens but also a higher quality if life. Pitching to the NHS, they were highly impressed with the framework. Additionally we also offered them awareness campaigns to start off with, as well as an implementation plan. The same and more can be found on my Behance, where I’ve elaborate further on the project.
02
Architecture Design/ Social Design
RESchool Architecture Competition
RETHINKING EDUCATION While literacy gradually increases throughout India, the rate of education still hasn’t seen much development. Children who do have access to schools, are also mostly taught subjects that don’t appeal to them, often don’t contribute to their overall development and in rural cases, are therefore deemed useless and unimportant. Additionally, the children privileged enough to get proper educational facilities, often fall into the rabbit hole of unnecessary competition (the “rat race”), and incur habits such as memorising and studying for grades. In order to break from that system, we devised our own form of learning. Learning that would lead to the overall development of the child. This kind of learning would need a balance of textbook/resource learning and behavioural development; as well as cultural learning that is immediately relevant to their context, as well as being up-to-date with the global scenario. The subjects and skills taught at the program, would help the child contribute to their society, which in the 21st century is one of the biggest assets one can have.
LEARNING BY DOING Most of the methods devised are learning by doing/ making, therefore developing the child’s capacity to think, as well as create. As most of the activities aren’t theoretical, the children would be subjected to communicating an analysis of what they have learnt – therefore each child will have their own method of submission, no copying, no memorising, no cheating and complete freedom of individuality. The school will also be completely run by the students. With access to vertical farms and a kitchen, the children will be taught to take care of their own dietary needs. The children will also be responsible for maintaining the school, i.e. keeping it clean, taking note of inventory, etc, with the help of the teachers.
Reschool Learning for the glbal context
Textbook/ resource learning
Learning in the local context Holistic learning
Behavioural development
Individual growth Rebuilding community
Community development
Sustainability
Growth of overall society
Natural Disaster
SITE – KOLORIANG, ARUNACHAL PRADESH Looking at the literacy rates of India and the numerous government schemes to educate the masses, it was clear that most areas in India have access to education, except very remote areas. Koloriang in Arunachal Pradesh seemed like a great opportunity because not only is it situated in a remote area, but also in the district of India’s lowest literacy rates (65%). Digging in we discovered the Arunachal Pradesh (along with states like Assam, Manipal etc) are prone to frequent and devastating floods; and often landslides and earthquakes. They also face a lack of teachers. Logically, if a village spends half a year surviving and rebuilding after floods and earthquakes, the times to learn becomes limited. Our intervention therefore not only deals with innovative learning, but is also a safe space during earthquakes and floods, easy to rebuild in case of emergencies and spacious enough to host and take care of many people.
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT The school, which during its off-hours turns into a community centre, will aim at developing the community and creating a bridge between all sections of the society. The food cooked by the children when excess, will be available for free distribution in the evenings. The workshops would also turn to shops for carpenters and mechanics in the evening. The history class would convert to a museum displaying relics of Koloriang as well as the children’s work, after hours. Every so often the elders would be invited to come, teach the kids anything they’d like while the kids would be able to teach them the new things they’ve been learning. Not only would this bridge the gap between the different age groups of the society, it’ll also help with the current problem in Arunachal Pradesh – lack of teachers.
MATERIALS
Bambusa Balcooa
Melocanna bam
mboo
SITE Straw fused Mud plastered walls with bamboo reinforcements
Public access to the meditation hall from the ground floor. Student access to the school
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SECTIONAL VIEW
A. Louvered windows can act as partition walls when folded using a pivot at the edge. These help expand spaces as and when required and transform the spaces inside into smaller spaces whe needed.
B. All the passageways were designed keeping in mind accessibility for all. These transition spaces are enveloped with green vertical gardens that diminish the boundary between the built and the natural environment around.
D. The roof is designed in a way that it connects the school at various levels. By making the roof accessible to people it encourages them to use it for various purposes like roof top farming, Common open cultural community spaces.
E. The spiral walkways are also houses the vertical farm/ garden where children help produce and support the community.
C C. The proposed structure is designed to create spaces that can harbor people in the time of a natural disaster. The strcuture is eartquack resistant and can be rebuilt easily in the time of need. These spaces also act as community spaces.
F. The central corridor has the central utility spine. This spine caters to all the needs of the students and also incorporates fun and interactive spaces for the children to expand their learning beyond the class room doors.
03
Architecture Design
Arogya: Rehabilitation for Vulnerable Women Undergraduate Thesis
AN OVERVIEW The hard part of tackling the issue of gender inequality, is to make the oppressed women believe that they are worth equality. Even in urban cities, there are scores of such women – beggars, women rescued from sex-trafficking, from abused backgrounds, uneducated. Although there are NGOs and agencies that rescue women in need, often the women end up going back to their origins because they aren’t educated/ trained to do much else, and they’ve never believed they are to be rescued. A rehabilitation for such women would be more than just a roof over their heads and food in their bellies; it would include basic education, employment opportunities and most of all the realisation that they are a wanted and needed part of the society.
HYPOTHESIS Healing through the means of spaces and architecture is an experimental concept, that could be well explored through the means of this particular project. The idea is to create spaces that have a psycological effect on women who’ve been through previous trauma, be it domestic violence, prostitution and such.
SITE As seen according to the indian statistics, it is west bengal that has seen the most amount of crimes against Women. further, the biggest red light area is also housed here in kolkata, taking which into consideration, kolkata seemed like a city crying for help. analysing the city’s various red light areas and the ngo’s dedicated to helping them, a vague idea of a potential site was derived.
PLANNING THAT TRANSLATES INTO THE PLANS The emotional journey of the women From trauma to recovery
THIRD FLOOR The personal zone
SECOND FLOOR The private upliftement zone
FIRST FLOOR
GROUND FLOOR
The creative rejuvinating zone
The social zone
SECTIONAL ELEVATIONS
04
Service Design/ Design Fiction
Reimagining the VISA system Studio Project
AN OVERVIEW The visa system usually has negative connotations attached to it. For our stage one project at M.Des, we were given the task of reimagining what visas could be. Visas vastly relied on the country of citizenship and defined the process of immigration and mobility. We were to determine how it might function differently. What new systems would need to be created to support such aproposition? What new practices or customs might emerge as a result? Would new forms and patterns of immigration become possible?
PRESENT DAY SYSTEM OF VISA The first logical step was to study the current system of visas and how they presently function. The map below elaborates the same.
CASE STUDIES AND ETHNOGRAPHY The 4 countries chosen to be case studied were: Sweden (the best country in the world to immigrate to), Canada (one of the best countries to immigrate to), Australia (that used to be the best country in the world to immigrate to) and Denmark (lately known for trying to forcefully assimilate immigrants). Here is what we discovered from the studies and conversations.
INSIGHTS & OPPORTUNITIES SUMMARISED
“I think you feel like a citizen when you can contribute the economy of the country.�
“If globalisation encourages the influx and outflux of everything, then why not people?” “Since I am not a citizen I don’t get much preference as the citizens get but we get job opportunities but the citizens get a bit advantage in work and politics.”
“With a good integration process in place, refugees and asylum seekers would definitely be good citizens! But the onus falls on the governments to educate and integrate.”
OPTING FOR DESIGN FICTION Projecting the project onto a more imaganative situation was the solution to exit the oppresive and excessively political context of the visa system. Design Fiction and Speculative Design could help us get our audience to rethink today’s VISA system, and political situation.
For it to be relatable to today’s context and not highly improbable, the context for a visa to Mars seemed ideal – it’s set in the future, but at the same time grounded in reality.
CONTEXT: VISA FOR MARS MIGRATION So for the project, we aimed our attention at the point in time when migrating to Mars is as much a possibility, as currently migrating to another country on Earth is, i.e. not too easy, but not too difficult. The main reason we (NASA, Elon Musk, human beings in general) are currently looking at the possibility of moving to Mars, is because our impact on the planet Earth has rapidly deteriorated it – be it because of wars (politics), irresponsibility (climate change) or selfishness (refugee crisises). We assume if humans were to move to Mars, we would make sure we don’t repeat the same mistakes. Therefore, we (the designers) established the key framework for a possibly Utopic world in Mars:
1. Every city/country/province would be a 100% self sustained, i.e. a holistic community. 2. Being self sustained, plus being terraformed, would lead to new job/education opportunities that didn’t previously exist on planet Earth. 3. Being a relatively new planet, and sustainable, wold mean a farmer would be as important (if not more) than an IT engineer, therefore destroying social classes that exist on Earth. 4. Each city/country/province would also be multicultural and diverse. There would not be any segregation in terms of earthly elements such as race, religion and so on.
Additionally, migration to Mars would also be more user centered, since it’s not an American or a Pakistani going to Mars, but an Earthling, therefore we are equal no matter the passport we hold. Consequently, we wanted to structure the Visa to be:
1. For the benefit of both the host planet as well as the immigrant. 2. Independent of nationality and financial status. 3. Highly dependent on responsibility, and urgency.
VISA FOR MARS MIGRATION DESIGNED
VISA FOR MARS MIGRATION SUMMARISED
CURRENT VISA VISUALISED To explain our reimagined VISA system better, we created storyboards in the form of stop-motion videos. To begin with, we had a set of 3 strories that show the current, unfair visa system. The first is the story of a boy who wants to travel to Italy, but his visa gets rejected, and no reason/feedback is provided as to why.
The second is the tale of a young, Muslim girl whose visa to the USA gets rejected, simply because factors like religion is still a deciding factor in today’s visa system.
The third shows a tale of privilege, where a boy is refused travel visa simply because he doesn’t have a job currently.
VISA FOR MARS MIGRATION VISUALISED On the other hand, we had a storyboard that would show the simplicity and ease of access of our new visa system. To show this, we have the story of Jenny, who applies for the visa, takes a test, gets her visa (which is represented in the form of a cloud), and as she goes through her life, responsibilities and rights in Mars, she obtains a PR status (a cloud and a sun) and finally a citizenship (a rainbow).
05 Branding
Branding for DESIGN BUBBLEGUM Personal Project
BRAND STORY “Design Bubblegum is fun creatives designing for a change. We create – efficiently, sustainably and beautifully. What do we create? Anything. And everything. Ranging from architecture, graphic design, service design, to art and content; we do it all!” The above is the design studio’s story. The brand is young, fun and creative. They believe in design that is clean, sustainable and unexpected. Echoing that, their brand identity too, needed to be fun, clean and unexpected. The idea was for their positive ethos and their impactful, happy designs to be clear as day, at the first glance. Starting from the colours, the tone they use, their voice, the logo, right up to each and every collateral has been designed to mimic their story, their identity. They also have a website we’re working on, that’ll be aired soon!
COLOURS
Black
Grey
Bubblegum Pink
Pure Pink
White
LOGO ANATOMY Going by their name and identity, we developed a logo that is simple, apt, and unique: essentially a Bubblegum idea!
TYPOGRAPHY Heading Sub-heading Body Hyperlink
COLLATERALS Letter head & Envelopes: All paper products customised to them are printed on recycled paper. The envelopes have seeds inside the seams which will grow into plants if/when thrown away. Visiting cards: Instead of creating an actual visiting card, we created custom made stamps for eac of their members. These stamps include the logo, their name, their designation and contact detials, like a visiting card would. Now, instead of printing cards and wasting paper and process, they stamp on the napkin next to you, the used paper lying around or anyform of paper that is available, and you’re good to go. Notebooks: “We want our clients or potential clients to have something they can use, that is sustainable, unique, portable and reminds them of us.” As little mementos or tokens of appreciations, we created these A6 notebooks, that are a mix of dotted and grid sheets – both hardboundand paperback – each with a personalised message. Again, made out of recycled paper.
06 Print Design
Project Process Journal Studio Submission
BRIEF As a masters student at the Glasgow School of Art, we were to produce a designed design journal of our process through the semester in the studio – a critical analysis of our own work. Although the content of the Project Process Journal is a whole different project in itself, for the purpose of this portfolio I will illustrate the design of the journal as a product; i.e. print design. While the journal is 175mmx210mm in size, inside it contains A5 sized tracing sheets demonstrating the personal design process in the form of illustrations – a touch of personalisation.
Reflection
Heading Body
Annotation
This is a brief excerpt of my work as an architect and a designer. The main reason the portfolio is mainly comprised of studio/personal projects is because of confidentiality agreements with clients I’ve done most live projects with. However, you can find more of my architecture work at: https://issuu.com/ishikamukherjee/docs/architecture_portfolio A full report of my thesis research can also be found here: https://issuu.com/ishikamukherjee/docs/thesis_report More of my graphic design and art work is available here: https://www.behance.net/Ishika_mukherjee Aside from design, I’ve also worked as a writer, if interested, do check out my work as a design journalist here: https://www.asianpaints.com/colourquotient/ CQ_Writers.aspx?cid=129&pid=516 and my personal blog here: https://mydaintydiaries.wordpress.com
Fin.