Steelcase Virtual Design Workspace

The Dream

Steelcase Worksplace Futures groups approached USC’s Mobile and Environmental Media lab with a bold request: Imagine the future of Interior Design in a world of ubiquitous Mixed Reality Technology.

What does the future of design work look like when creative computing is overlaid onto the workplace environment? What affordances are provided when every surface is an interface?

 The Inspiration

We began our journey by conducting a series of ethnographic interviews with Steelcase Interior Designers. We studied Steelcase 360 and other product launch videos to better understand the innovative culture of Steelcase products. Steelcase empowers designers to reach creative breakthroughs through a rich understanding the creative process. We believed that mixed reality could inspire designers to be inside of a limitless world of ideas.

The Execution

We used a recording system to create multiple Steelcase designer characters to guide users through a Mixed Reality office of the future in a series of speculative design scenarios inspired by our research conversations with current industrial designers. The fictional avatars asked the user to use a series of tools in order to solve design problems. This fictional scenario allowed us to create speculative design problems that naturally guided the user through the creative journey.