As Programme Manager and newly appointed Teaching Associate Professor in Industrial Design, Per Voss Nielsen helps shape the academic direction of the programme and its curriculum. The ambition is to give students a strong disciplinary foundation from which they can contribute meaningfully to innovation and development alongside engineers, manufacturers and companies.
New Teaching Associate Professor sharpens focus on Industrial Design
What should an industrial designer be able to do? For Per Voss Nielsen, the answer involves identifying new needs, thinking strategically and understanding innovation – but also something much more fundamental: being genuinely good at designing.
As Programme Manager for Industrial Design and newly appointed Teaching Associate Professor, he is working with colleagues to translate this focus into the curriculum. This academic year, no fewer than five new courses are being introduced in the second year of the bachelor’s programme, with medical devices, consumer electronics and bicycles among the areas students will explore.
In the medical devices course, students will design for patients and healthcare professionals, with particular attention to safety, usability and creating a sense of reassurance. In consumer electronics, they will explore the interaction between people and products, while also considering sustainability and product lifespan. And in a course on ergonomics and transport, bicycles will provide one possible context for working with ergonomics and user understanding.
Rector Carina Christensen says Per Voss Nielsen’s appointment gives him a central role in the continued development and positioning of Industrial Design at Kolding School of Design:
– With Per as Teaching Associate Professor, we strengthen our Industrial Design programme with a powerful combination of design expertise, technical insight and industry experience. At Kolding School of Design, we build on a strong design tradition that we continually develop in response to new technologies, materials and production methods. At the same time, we work closely with industry across Denmark, where design and innovation go hand in hand. Per brings precisely this combination into the programme and will play an important part in educating industrial designers who not only master their discipline but can also drive innovation in close collaboration with other disciplines and industry.
From ‘What should we design?’ to ‘How do we design?’
For Per Voss Nielsen, the new product areas are first and foremost a starting point for working with the discipline of design itself:
– It is not simply about introducing students to new product categories, but about using them as a framework for learning and practising the discipline of design itself.
The new focus is not a move away from either innovation or business understanding. Quite the opposite: it is about making clearer what industrial designers bring to the innovation process – a strong professional ability to translate needs, technologies and opportunities into tangible products.
Per Voss Nielsen has worked extensively with innovation and business understanding, using tools such as the Business Model Canvas. That experience has prompted a closer look at how time on the bachelor’s programme is balanced across different aspects of the discipline.
– These are relevant skills, but they need to be balanced with more fundamental design knowledge – for example, an understanding of materials and production, and of the actual process of developing a product.
With the new curriculum, he has therefore sought to strengthen the foundations of the bachelor’s programme even further.
– Put simply, you could say that where we previously spent a great deal of time on the open question, ‘What should we design?’, we now want to give students more time to learn ‘How do we design?’
This does not mean narrowing the role of the designer. The ambition is precisely to give students a strong grounding in their own discipline, enabling them to contribute meaningfully to innovation and development in collaboration with engineers, manufacturers and companies.
Per Voss Nielsen wants to strengthen students’ foundations in design and their ability to contribute meaningfully to innovation and development in collaboration with other disciplines.
“It is not simply about introducing students to new product categories, but about using them as a framework for learning and practising the discipline of design itself.”
A strong tradition as the foundation
The new focus builds on a strong design tradition at Kolding School of Design.
Here, aesthetics and sensory experience sit alongside an understanding of materials, function, production and the people for whom products are created.
– For me, it is partly about maintaining a strong grounding in the aesthetic and sensory dimensions of design, understanding that people have different needs and preferences, and being able to translate that insight into products where form, function and user experience come together as a coherent design solution, says Per Voss Nielsen.
The new courses will also give students experience of product areas they might not otherwise have explored.
– I hope to broaden students’ understanding of how widely Industrial Design can be applied and spark their curiosity about product areas and challenges that might not immediately appeal to them. In that way, I hope more students will recognise the opportunities to apply their skills broadly and feel confident bringing their expertise into areas where strong design capabilities are needed.
Design develops through engagement with the real world
The new courses will also bring teaching into closer contact with the world beyond the School.
Together with his colleagues, Per Voss Nielsen is in the process of establishing partnerships with several major organisations that will bring real-world design challenges into the classroom. He is not yet able to reveal who the partners are, but the collaborations will give students the opportunity to work with the kinds of challenges and collaborative processes they are likely to encounter in professional practice.
This builds on an approach in which Industrial Design develops in dialogue with other professions, companies and manufacturers – and with the people who will ultimately use the products being developed.
When technology needs to make sense to people
Collaboration across disciplines is becoming even more important as new technologies open up new possibilities for products and solutions. Per Voss Nielsen sees a particular role for designers in this space.
– Design can help create the connection between new technology and the people who are going to use it. Technological development can create new possibilities, but design can help determine how those possibilities can best be translated into products that people actually want to use.
And the human dimension does not end once a product works technically.
– It is not only about whether a product works, but also about the experience it provides – and about creating something people want to choose, use and, hopefully, keep for many years.
It is precisely at this intersection that Per Voss Nielsen believes designers can create value in collaboration with engineers, technologists and companies.
Five new courses are being introduced in the second year of Industrial Design, with areas including bicycles, consumer electronics and medical devices. External partnerships will bring real-world design challenges into the classroom and introduce students to ways of working they will encounter as professional designers.
“Design can help create the connection between new technology and the people who are going to use it.”
From engineer to industrial designer
Per Voss Nielsen’s own career reflects this interdisciplinary approach. Originally trained as a structural engineer, he spent five years working as an engineer, including on structural calculations.
Following the financial crisis, he changed direction and retrained as a designer. He completed both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Industrial Design at Kolding School of Design, graduating in 2015.
He then spent five years as a design and innovation consultant at DEVELOPA in Kolding, working on a wide range of design and innovation projects – with clients ranging from large companies to start-ups, and on products ranging from toys to medical devices.
In 2020, he returned to Kolding School of Design as a Teaching Assistant Professor. He later took responsibility for Industrial Design on the bachelor’s programme and now continues his work as a Teaching Associate Professor.
– I therefore bring experience from engineering, design education and the design industry, and it is this combination of perspectives that I draw on in my teaching today.
Taking the long view on the programme
The appointment as Teaching Associate Professor gives Per Voss Nielsen the opportunity to continue developing the programme with a longer-term perspective.
– To me, the appointment feels like recognition of the work I have already been part of on the programme. At the same time, it gives me the opportunity to take a more long-term approach to developing both the teaching and the programme itself.
The five new courses are one tangible example of that development, but the ambition goes further:
– I particularly hope to contribute to the continued development of Industrial Design and to translate my experience from both the design industry and teaching into new ways of developing the programme.
Per Voss Nielsen hopes to broaden students’ understanding of the many ways in which Industrial Design can be applied – and to give them the confidence to bring their expertise into new fields.
