Vicente Esteban - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Vicente Esteban

International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games

What kind of game is Refugeoly? Refugeoly is a Serious Game which it main purpose is not just pla... more What kind of game is Refugeoly? Refugeoly is a Serious Game which it main purpose is not just playing for fun but playing to create awareness of this humanitarian crisis. This game is designed to understand the dramatic journey of a refugees trying to get into a country of asylum. Playing Refugeoly will turn you into a refugee and become conscience of the real circumstances that a refugee has to go through in the journey to safety. Refugeoly has been built into a game with the testimonies of refugees and NGO volunteers in refugee camps in Greece, Turkey, Spain and France. An important fact about Refugeoly is the use of money to play this game by the players that become refugees when playing. To reach a country of asylum the refugees require huge amounts of money, and through playing Refugeoly, the game shows how this money disappears from the hands of the refugees to end in the hands of the Mafia. The main inspiration to create Refugeoly is the famous game Monopoly (Refugee +Monopoly= Refugeoly), because of its simplicity and the use of money to buy and speculate with property. In the case of Refugeoly this money serves to pay the Mafia that will cross you the mediterranean sea, to pay for asylum papers or simply to buy a tent.

The aim of this dissertation is to o er design proposals that can help the city of Cadiz to beco... more The aim of this dissertation is to o er design proposals that can help the city of Cadiz to become a ‘Future City’. What follows is designed as a sort manual for turning an old city into a new city that requires a new position in the global world. Cadiz is located in the region of Andalusia in the south west of Spain. Cadiz is a small enclave that is connected to the mainland by a road and two bridges and with a population of around 120.000 inhabitants in and area of approximately 12 square kilometers. Cadiz is a special place, being one of the oldest cities in the western world, it is anchored to an amazing historical past and I believe that this fact has and is a affecting negatively, to the perception of the enormous possibilities that this territory has to become a Future City.

Final year Design degree contextual report. Alternative housing systems for students in London. E... more Final year Design degree contextual report. Alternative housing systems for students in London. Experimental spaces.

Conference Presentations by Vicente Esteban

The housing situation in almost every country has reached an incredible level of uncertainty and ... more The housing situation in almost every country has reached an incredible level of uncertainty and restlessness. Lack of availability, escalating and unaffordable prices for the majority of people, constant speculation, among many other issues, are dramatically affecting the wellbeing of millions of people. Despite the amazing number of housing construction alternatives available nowadays it seems that there are no clear solutions for this problem. The housing issue reaches its highest severity in cities, in which simply finding a small dwelling becomes a real challenge. This essay aims to bring a speculative individual dwelling design proposal for 'Urban Nomadic' citizens living in big and highly populated cities. I have titled this paper " Urban Nomadism 2.0 (The E-‐Pod)'' as I am focusing on a specific citizen: The E-‐Nomad. Vehicle / Urban Nomad / Autonomous / Mobile / Housing / Who is the E-‐Nomad? According to Carven and Morelli " Nomadic workers are currently engaged primarily in the use of soft technologies, often in order to maintain contact with a centralised head office. Shelter has not been perceived as an issue relevant to the work situation but as the requirements of business lead to an increase in travel times, the instances where short-‐term shelter could be of real benefit are increasing. Indeed, as time spent travelling grows, one could speculate that the need to maintain a traditional house/home might become questionable " 1. This is clearly one of the issues that affect e-‐workers (people working at home or out of the office using a computer connected to the network of their employer). These are often people that do not have a fixed place of work and working life is on the go. We find them in cafes, hotels, libraries, bars, city corners, etc. Any sort of place with an Internet connection and a flat surface to place their computer are the only requisites, thus blurring the separation between work time and personal time. What sort of architecture suits this type of citizen? Maybe the E-‐Pod could be a solution. In order to introduce my design proposal I would like to start with the work of the British architecture collective Archigram 2 , which has inspired me to design this new concept of dwelling. Between 1964 and 1966 Ron Herron designed and published his Walking Cities drawings. These new and innovative cities consisted of multi-‐storey buildings that sat on giant telescopic legs that bring to mind the shape of an insect, maybe some sort of beetle. Despite the highly detailed drawing, there is not much explanation of how these cities would actually function, however for me Herron's walking cities 1 Craven&Morelli. Logical Spaces for Urban Nomads (2005). Research Gate Publication 268275953. 2 http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/a/archigram-walking-city-living-pod-instant-city/ Archigram Archives at Victoria & Albert museum (London).

Design Projects by Vicente Esteban

MY NAME IS PACO, 2017

I started this project with a homeless man that I have known for many years. In Christmas of 20... more I started this project with a homeless man that I have known for many years. In Christmas of 2017 after a long time I met Paco in a street of Cadiz (Spain). He was begging. In a piece of cardboard he had written “Merry Christmas” and also he had added - I accept food too. I was very happy to see him after so many years and felt very much touched by his hand writing. At the moment I though that his font was very special, it said so much about him. Then I decided to buy a thick marker and a piece of cardboard. I asked Paco if he could write the alphabet for me, my friend Paco did not know what the alphabet was, so on the back of the new cardboard I wrote it for him. I gave him some money and with his shaky hands he started to write it.

Back in London, where I live and work, I vectorised each letter and with the help of a colleague, expert in typography we designed “Paco”, a font that uses Paco’s hand alphabet. This font can be incorporated in any computer’s text processor program.

You might think that I might taken advantage of Paco’s type, but on the contrary my aim was, and is to use Paco’s writing (and other people in hard situations) to build a Font Library that can be downloaded from a a website for a small copyright fee.

But how does this idea benefits Paco and others?
Every person that downloads Paco’s type pays a small fee to an account of a charity that administrates Paco’s indirect income, in order to help him stop begging and with this economical support change Paco’s situation by using this new form of donation.

My proposal for Trampoline is to use this system with the refugees that you are helping. Ask them to write personal alphabets to create new types, Aisha, George, Manuel, etc. Each one would be able to generate indirect income by simply writing an alphabet.

Requirements for this project.
To make this project possible the main requirement is a web hosting that can locate a Font index and a program that distributes the downloads according to each font / Owner.

On the technical work the main part of the process is to vectorise the letters and symbols and then follow the steps in the appropriate software in order to make the font work and finally upload it the mentioned web.

Who can make this?
The same people that create the fonts. They would receive a digital training that make them capable to control the whole process. The idea is that the can be part of the project from A to Z.

Reinventing the PIN number, 2018

PIMAGE Concept Replacing the PIN number is a real challenge. The Personal identification Number h... more PIMAGE Concept
Replacing the PIN number is a real challenge. The Personal identification Number has been in use for the last 60 years, enough time to proof its safety and functionality, therefore being so far the most popular systems for card payments and bank transactions.
Then why replacing the PIN? The focus for this brief would be to reassure that the PIN number can be transformed instead that being fully replaced. My personal belief is that there is room to develop an intuitive design solution based on the same principal but without digits
For this brief I have envisioned a smart phone logging system of tapping on a tactile screen that replaces the numbers for images. Why images? Images are away easier to memorise than words or numbers, and we use them constantly in the form of association to remember words, people or numbers.
Since the appearance of computers, mobile phones, tablets, etc, visual language dominates our interaction with the virtual world. Images, icons or emojis, have become the fastest way to communicate our opinion and moods, specially the young generations, then why not using personalised images as a password?
At the moment this design is focus towards Banking Transactions but it is also ideal as an Identification Systems that requires a form of PIN to log in.
What differs this system from digit based logging systems?
Allan Paivio's dual-coding theory is a basis of picture superiority effect. Paivio claims that pictures have advantages over words with regards to coding and retrieval of stored memory because pictures are coded more easily and can be retrieved from symbolic mode, while the dual coding process using words is more difficult for both coding and retrieval. Another explanation of the higher recall in picture superiority is due to the higher familiarity or frequency of pictured objects
(Asch & Ebenholtz, 1962). According to dual- coding theory (1971, 1986), memory exists either (or both) verbally or "imaginally". Concrete concepts presented as pictures are encoded into both
systems; however, abstract concepts are recorded only verbally. In psychology, the effect has implications for salience in attribution theory as well as the availability heuristic. It is also relevant to advertising and user interface design (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picture_superiority_effect).
The second feature that makes this system very effective and safe is the personalisation by the user as these ones are unique. Also the amount of mosaic images sequence which multiplies the safety dramatically.

Cadiz. The Future in 16 Scenarios, 2017

Cadiz The Future in 16 Scenarios The aim of this design proposal is to provide a platform to in... more Cadiz

The Future in 16 Scenarios

The aim of this design proposal is to provide a platform to invite citizens to reinvent the future of Cadiz.

Founded by the Phoenicians, Cadiz is the oldest continuously
inhabited city in Spain and one of the oldest in Western Europe.
Situated on a narrow slice of land in the south of Spain, it is surrounded by the sea‚ Cadiz is Colonial Andalusian City with a wealthy past, well preserved and full historical and architectonical landmarks.

In different times in the history Cadiz, this city has been commercially crucial and culturally rich. Its citizens modern and cultivated. Since the early 80,s of the last century, with the closed downs of the docks, main industrial activity and source of income, this city lives in a limbo, and despite of its amazing potential, Cadiz lacks of a clear city model and direction. Somehow Cadiz exists immersed in its own idiosyncrasy, away from the rest of the world.

This project applies speculative and fictional design to propose a
number of Future Scenarios, carefully chosen to experience 16 different fictional possibilities of Cadiz in the future. A timeline of 75 years,
starting in 2017 and ending in 2092, shows 4 categories (RETRO / AMAZING / DISASTER / IDEAL) and each one contains 4 scenarios.

Objects and narratives of real past events, communicate these
imaginary scenarios in order to immerse the audience into these new
situations and fantasise with fictional events that could be real in the
future.

The methodology employed in this project is designed to create
believable possibilities that can perhaps give the citizens of Cadiz new directions todesigv the model of city that would have never imagined before.

Link to film here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-pG8bNnTnU&t=1s

Refugeoly , 2016

Play as a refugee as you try and navigate your way to safety Using the testimony of refuges and N... more Play as a refugee as you try and navigate your way to safety Using the testimony of refuges and NGO volunteers in camps of Greece, Turkey, Spain and France we were able to build a game, based in the classic Monopoly, that shows the circumstances that thousands of people escaping countries in conflict have to go through. The main aim of this Refugeoly game is to highlight the plight of being forced to be a refugee. By playing the game you can experience and understand how complex, dramatic and hard life can be for someone that simply is trying to flee from war and scarcity. This game is designed to create awareness of the situation of refugees at the borders of Europe. https://www.refugeoly.org/

A design response for a Burberry Company brief "The Future of Personalisation". This project prop... more A design response for a Burberry Company brief "The Future of Personalisation". This project proposal explores the future of personalisation above the clothing itself but the customer online community experience. The future of Burberry personalisation is the co-ownership of design and the new relationship between company-customer.

Workshops by Vicente Esteban

The Museum of the Refused (Workshop Structure) This workshop has been designed to use Fictional... more The Museum of the Refused
(Workshop Structure)

This workshop has been designed to use Fictional and Speculative design as the tools to build a conceptual Museum of the Refuse.
The idea is to enable the participants to create a number of future scenarios of their museum by using fictional narratives and timelines. This design process will help you to envision new possibilities for your museum.

The structure begins with a number of questions that shall invite you to create the context in which this museum sits on in the world. These questions are logical and essential, and the answers shall provide of a “Pool of Facts” that will definitely help you to see the big picture of this museum and the world around it. Also the aim of these questions is to take into account how society works and its implications. The museum is not a separated entity, on the contrary, the museum is born as an extension of the society.

Affordances and Design, 2018

Design Affordances. What is an Affordance in design? Affordances are clues about how an object s... more Design Affordances.
What is an Affordance in design?

Affordances are clues about how an object should be used, typically provided by the object itself or its context. For example, even if you've never seen a coffee mug before, its use is fairly natural. The handle is shaped for easy grasping and the vessel has a large opening at the top with an empty well inside. “The most important design tool is that of coherence and understandability which comes through an explicit, perceivable conceptual model. Affordances specify the range of possible activities, but affordances are of little use if they are not visible to the users. Hence, the art of the designer is to ensure that the desired, relevant actions are readily perceivable” (Norman, D. A. (1990). The Design of Everyday Things. New York: Doubleday).

This workshop explores the possibilities of finding affordances in objects or topics. The main focus of this exercise is to increse the perception of what "things" can afford, and with the help of narrative and fiction create new objects with new uses, or new lands with new scenarios. Envisioning Affordances help us to comeback to fantasy but with a different approach and analysing what possibilities we can develop with this "Affordable" design methodology.

Art Manifestations by Vicente Esteban

This is an graphic design project to illustrate the shocking front page of the New York Times la... more This is an graphic design project to illustrate the shocking front page of the New York Times last Sunday 24th 2020. The newspaper front page shown around 1000 names of USA citizens that have died from Covid19.

My illustrations aims to homage all these lost lives.

Experiments by Vicente Esteban

THOUGHTS in text and video by Vicente Esteban

This is not a Pipe. Rene Magritte and the power of representations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRnUOsPdu6E&feature=youtu.be

Drafts by Vicente Esteban

Refugeoly is a Serious Game which it main purpose is not just playing for fun but playing to unde... more Refugeoly is a Serious Game which it main purpose is not just playing for fun but playing to understand a humanitarian crisis. This board game is designed to experience based in real facts the dramatic journey of refugees trying to get into a country that can give them asylum. Playing Refugeoly turns the player into a refugee and becomes conscience of the real circumstances that a refugee has to go through in the journey to safety. Refugeoly has been built into a game with the testimonies of refugees and NGO volunteers in refugee camps of Greece, Turkey, Spain and France and with information from different organisations. This paper aims to explain the design process, the game mechanics, the different tested game formats, the feedback from the general public, academics and students that have played it and it future development.