Intro

During the time I enjoyed the Study Away program in Berlin, Germany, I was selected to participate in a multidisciplinary group to research and develop a future heimat (home) in Berlin for individuals who want to transition from one culture to another or tap into work/life balance.
Taking “Constellation” as a metaphor, our team explored and repositioned the meaning of a family. We redefined family from linear branches to an orbiting dynamic group of individuals, who establish meaningful and supportive relationships with each other.

Research

Berlin is a great testbed for experiments, the people are always engaging themselves in new ways of living, and historically Berlin has always seen constant change. It is interesting to see how numbers prove this move towards new family arrangements in Berlin.

Timeline Diagrams

Individuals in the same family would stay in the same orbit. Different orbits follow their own path, and intersect with other orbits. The blue spheres are the primary families, and the closer ones to them are defined as secondary families shown in orange.

When the adults need supports like when they are away for work, the other families as shown in yellow may come in and help. After all the busy life, all others fade away, the original family can still enjoy their private time. In this way, people stay independent yet together and form clusters.

We requested our classmates and professors to be actors and actresses for our Constellation scenario storytelling mini films.

Scenario Installation

We turned the user scenario into mini films that we composed with background videos and green screen videos shot separately, and made them look like they were a part of the story and then projection mapped them on tiles designed for each clip.

The system diagrams were installed on the ceiling as indications of which part of Constellation the story is in currently. We also setup a mini living room with a mockup for Polaris tiles to the left of the user scenario.

Interactive Mirror

Generally speaking, people love looking at themselves in their reflection on any kind of surface, and that's why we chose to use an interactive mirror to get their attention.

Constellation App

Pioneering to the near future, we made foldable UI design that's flexible to fit in any types and sizes of devices.

Ursa Cup

As we observed in the days in Berlin, most Berliners are heavy coffee drinkers. People who want to join can buy the Ursa coffee cup in shop, and once they find the right person to meet in person, they can bring their cups and physically meet with each other wherever they want.

Polaris Tiles

The interface works in a very natural way. You look up for the Constellation you want to contact and then speak to the system saying you wanna call them. A door appears where you can knock and see if they are even home to talk to you. If they are then your space becomes immersively the same as their space so you feel at their home, which is further enhanced with background noise from their house as well as scent.

We positioned Constellation as a system that is more formal and physical than most existing dating and coparenting apps.

In the match-making stage, instead of chatting online, we bring people together and talk to each other. With Ursa Cup, people have to meet at least three times to make the decision whether they want to form a constellation. For the communications, we are using a screen-based medium, but we try to bring back the analog way of communication – you knock on the door, get into their home, and chat with them face to face when they are available, just like in the old times.

We used four Bauhaus Ethos: Unity, Experimentation, Honesty, and Functionalism as drivers for developing our identity system.

Logomark

The logo consists of two orange orbits in different weights of strokes and in different dimensions symbolizing the relationship across time and space, and the two azure spheres represent individual parents and individual kids connecting with each other. Altogether they form a letter C, the initial letter for Constellation, the clusters of stars of families in a huge galaxy.