about the project
Tabiea is a 7-week project where I collaborated with my good friend Cheuk Ying which had us explore and experiment with designing using mechanisms. Our design brief had us design a moving ‘shield’. We broke down the concept of a shield as an object which protects the user. Instead of “physical harm” we challenged ourselves by conceptualizing a shield which protected the user from emotional and psychological harm.
This led us to research on childhood trauma and how it may affect individuals as they grow into adulthood, which led us to read about children in refugee camps. These children experienced unspeakable acts to themselves, their families, and homes at an extremely young age. As product designers, we thought of ways we could improve the lives of these children in refugee camps through a physical object in the best of our capacity. Heavy emphasis on Marslo’s Hierarchy of needs was given when choosing a suitable refugee camp to design for.
We chose Zaatari refugee camp as it was one of the biggest camps and was supplied basic necessities such as food, water, and shelter from the United Nations. The camp was in the middle of a barren desert, filled with debris and sharp objects, making it unsuitable for children to play in. There conceptualized a device in which children could operate to clear the surrounding debris, creating a relatively safer environment to play in together with their peers. We took reference from play therapy and hope that through this act of play and interaction with their peers would allow these children to have a better environment for rehabilitation.
Tabiea draws inspiration from Theo Jansen’s strand beasts while its construction takes reference from DIY toy assembly. We paid close attention to how it could be easily assembled and chose materials that were suitable for the proposed location.
