Shaping Designers’ Sea Sense: A Guide for Design-Driven Field Research at Sea

Abstract

Designers taking on marine design projects need an in-depth understanding of the context for which they design to be able to make good design judgements. This paper suggests that such an understanding can be referred to as ‘designers’ sea sense’, and argues that field research is paramount for designers to develop such a sense. Building on experiences with field research at the Ocean Industries Concept Lab at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design, a guide for designdriven field research has been developed. This guide can help designers prepare for and make the most of field studies at sea. In this paper, we introduce the guide and discuss the rationale behind it.