Curriculum vitae
Bo Westerlund, PhD, MFA
Recently
I have worked with the development of design education at a Swedish university, done evaluations for academic positions and participated in PhD defences and education.
At Konstfack (University of Arts, Crafts and Design) in Stockholm, I supervised a PhD candidate in the Art, technology and design doctoral programme that Konstfack runs together with KTH.
I was also engaged in the transdisciplinary research project Space and place in end-of-life care.
Education (some)
2006–2009 PhD studies in Human–Computer Interaction with a focus on co-operative design processes. Earned the PhD degree with the thesis Design Space Exploration 2009-11-06.
1990 Ergonomics, Arbetsmiljöinstitutet, National Institute of Occupational Health. (15p)
1981-1985, Industrial Designer MFA. Konstfack, Stockholm. (170p)
Entrepreneurial positions (some)
1997– Starts and owns the design firm Andersson & Westerlund.
1985–1997, Starts, works in and owns the industrial design firm Industridesignbyrån*
that carried out design commisions in many fields for small and large companies.
Academic positions (some)
2018-2019, Professor at Konstfack and Director of PhD studies, and mainly engaged in the Art, technology and design doctoral programme that Konstfack runs together with KTH.
2012–2013, Director of Designfakulteten, D!, the Swedish Faculty for Design Research and Research Education, (Designfakulteten, D!, in Swedish)
2011–2018 Professor in Industrial Design at Konstfack in Stockholm.
2010–2012, Affiliated professor in in the subject area Design Methods, with emphasis at early product development, at KTH (The Royal Institute of Technology) KTH, ITM.
2006–2011, Professor in Design methodology at the School of Design, University
of Kalmar. 2010 this university merged with Växjö University into the Linnæus University, http://lnu.se/design
2004–2006, Visiting professor in Industrial Design at the School of design, Kalmar-Nybro at the University of Kalmar.
2002–2004, Guest lecturer at the School of design Kalmar-Nybro at the University of Kalmar.
1996–2009, Guest researcher at CID, Centre for User Oriented IT Design, at
the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm. Name changed to HCI,
CSC in 2005. http://hci.csc.kth.se
2006-2008, Local project leader for the KTH part of the EU financed project
NEPOMUK http://nepomuk.semanticdesktop.org/
2001–2003, Key investigator in “interLiving” a EU financed cooperative
design project within the Disappearing Computer initiative, IST-FEThttp://interliving.kth.se
1993–2001, Senior Lecturer in Graphic Technique at the department of Graphic Design and Illustration, Konstfack, Stockholm.
Research projects (some)
Space and place in end of life care
The purpose of the project is to understand and improve factors that support well-being from different perspectives in environments where care in life ends. The project is being carried out together with two departments in a larger retirement home in Stockholm, where exploration takes place with residents, family, staff and researchers. Bo Westerlund, Konstfack, contributes with design expertise, and other researchers are from Karolinska Institute, Stockholm University and Stockholm University of the Arts. Space and place in end-of-life care
Financed by Formas 201?–2020
Design beyond service and product
The aim with this project is to create a proposal for a highly relevant design education preparing the students to conduct designerly, collaboratively constructive design processes that address complex challenges ensuring sustainable, qualitative and aesthetic aspects. Final report in pdf. Finansed by KKS 2016–2018
Decode
Community Design for Conflicting Desires, a project facing challenges related to sustainable urban design and planning processes, with a focus on social sustainability. I reserached co-design approaces aiming to increase the impact of citizen involvement and democracy. Partly financed by Vinnova. 2014–2016
Report on co-design workshops [in Swedish]
Designerly Designed Design Education (DDDE)
Three well established Scandinavian design schools join forces to address contemporary challenges within design education and consciously further develop educational quality and appropriateness in their respective schools.
These are: Designskolen Kolding, Denmark; The Institute of Design at the School of Architecture and Design in Oslo, Norway and Konstfack, Sweden, Financed by CIRRUS, 2011–2013
http://www.designresearch.no/projects/ddde-designing-design-design-education/about
Development of methods for generating ideas in the field of service design practice
The research project “Development of methods for generating ideas in the field of service design practice” developed methods for innovation and generation of ideas that enabled an increased amount of stakeholders to participate in the design of services. It was conducted by Transformator Design (TD), Konstfack and the Linnaeus University.
The focus was on enhancing designerly ways of working, i.e. ways that support work with a designerly approach. Learning is done by simultaneously working with proposals and the puzzling situation. The two approaches that were developed was a conscious work with visual and material prototypes in all events, and a contextually sensitive co-design.
It was conducted within an actual on-going project that TD carried out for a client. The research was done by Fredrik Sandberg, at Linnaeus University and Bo Westerlund together with Transformator Design.
The project received funding, in large competition, from VINNOVA’s call “Innovation and Design 2012” and was carried out during 2012 and 2013.
Nepomuk
Aimed to develop the Social Semantic Desktop. The group at KTH was one of 16 European partners and explored use aspects of our computer's prospective semantic opportunities. 2006–2008
http://nepomuk.semanticdesktop.org
interLiving
The interLiving project studied and developed, together with families, technologies that facilitates generations of family members living together... I worked with probes, workshops, and prototypes that were co-designed by families and researchers from different backgrounds. We worked together with fifteen households in Stockholm and Paris for three years, 2000–2003.
http://interliving.kth.se
Interactive web
I explored how people who “visited” a physical site via the web, could communicate with the visitors who were physically present at this site. I wanted to give web visitors some control over what they were experiencing. In practice, I assembled a shopping cart with a portable computer with a chat software coded together with the camera and som more to support the collaborative. This interactive shopping cart participated in the Art exhibition “Marknaden” (the Market) at World Trade Center, Stockholm 1998 and then made use of a radio link (this was before WiFi was available :-). Also at two exhibitions at Konstfack. Made possible by Artistic Development (KU) funding from Konstfack. 1996–1998.
Commissions of trust (some)
2015, General chair for Nordes 2015, Design Ecologies at Konstfack.
2012, the chair of the D&R network, i.e. the 20 academic institutions in Sweden that are members in Designfakulteten (D!) and support it.
2010–2012, Appointed as a member of the Swedish Research Council’s (Vetenskapsrådet) Commitée for artistic research and artistic development work (VR, Artistic research).
Contests, exhibitions and scholarships (some)
2010 I was awarded the Design Research Prize, for my thesis.
2005, The Torsten Dahlin scholarship that supports knowledge development and research in industrial design. SVID on the motivation, etc.
1998, “Interactive web”, a collaborative, interactive shopping cart that participated in the Art exhibition “Marknaden” (the Market) at World Trade Center, Stockholm and at two exhibitions at Konstfack.
1987, “58 Svenska Designer” *, (58 Swedish Designer) Design Center, Stockholm, and on tour around Sweden.
1985, Luntmakargatan*, Contest concerning public environment. Second prize.
(*together with Peter Johansson).
Publications ...
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