On Monday the 26th of April, the Chinese program of L’Ecole de design Nantes Atlantique launched a new design workshop. Dedicated to the brand « Haier », it gathers 35 design students from 5 different schools:

-   Tsinghua University 清华
-   Tongji University 同济
-   Shandong Art and Design University 山东工业美术学院
-   Qingdao University 青岛大学
-   L’Ecole de design Nantes Atlantique / China Campus 法国南特大西洋设计学院

For one week, students will work on the “kitchen” and will have to use their cross-cultural skills to answer the brief.

Ma Han, Design Project Manager at Haier

Based in Qingdao, Haier is a global manufacturer group in many product and service fields (electronic goods, small electric appliances, white goods, real estate, cleaning services…).

Haier’s particularity is to be able to manufacture and manage many ranges of products to launch global solutions. For example its « kitchen » business, includes kitchen furniture, white goods (refrigerator, oven, hood…), kitchen accessories (sink, hot water boiling tank, storage…), small domestic appliances (blender, coffee machine, toaster…) and services (cleaning, security guards, maintenance…).

This variety allows Haier designers to work on complete user experiences and not only on products. This way of doing design is well represented by its U-Home concept that symbolizes a connected system (using Internet and telecommunication technologies).

Mo Jiao, design teacher at Tongji University, Wang Yan, design teacher at Shandong University of Art and Design and Liu Jikun, design teacher at Tsinghua University

Zhou Lei, design teacher at Qingdao University

On this first day, students had to determine a target (independent Chinese women, rural inhabitants, experts…), one society trend (health, hygiene, wealth…) and one kitchen trend (minimalist, high-tech…).

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On Friday the 2^nd of April, Chinese students of Qingdao University taught arts and cultural customs to students of the China based design school of L’Ecole de design Nantes Atlantique.

All of them had a lot of fun…

Program: taijiquan 太极拳, calligraphy 书法, Bejing opera 京剧, tea ceremony, traditional songs, hand-held fan dance, kite festival history, Chinese traditional legends…

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On Tuesday the 23rd of February, 5th year students presented their final year projects to the jury. This one was made of 4 people:
- Michel Grenier, Executive director at UTSEUS Sino-European School of Technology,
- Marie-Chantal Piques, Consumer goods Manager at Ubifrance (French Embassy),
- Thibault Poyet, Design Manager at CBD (Beijing),
- Olivier Baleix, Founder and General Manager at Impacct (textile).

All the 20 4th year students also attended the event.

The jury has been really pleased by the students work.

The next and final step will be in Shanghai on the 6th of September 2010 : the final jury.

Olivier Baleix, Michel Grenier, Thibault Poyet and Marie-Chantal Piques

Quentin Tableau, presenting is lacquer project

Nicolas Hubert, presenting his project on the copy

Cécile Guillet, presenting her project on Chinese wine

Marie-Chantal Piques

Lise Picard, presenting her project on bike accessories

Maud-Andréa Bidet, PR Manager, and Frédéric Bonin, Head of Studies

Marie-Chantal Piques

Michel Grenier

Thibault Poyet

Christine Biancarelli

Olivier Baleix

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On Wednesday the 17^th of December 2009, Frederic Degouzon, Head of Strategy, Research and International Development of L’Ecole de design Nantes Atlantique and Jocelyne Le Boeuf, Head of Studies came and visit the 5^th year students in Qingdao. They participated in the jury of the phase 2 of student’s final year projects.

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In the middle of November, Nicolas Hubert, a 5th year student at the Chinese campus of L’Ecole de design Nantes Atlantique has organised a workshop with 8 design students from Qingdao University.

The goal of this project was to observe the Chinese way of doing design while asking the students to create a new Mandarin writing machine.

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The Chinese campus of L’Ecole de design Nantes Atlantique is based on Qingdao University campus.

Qingdao University is a comprehensive university in Shandong Province, which was combined with the former Qingdao University, Shandong Textile Engineering Institute, Qingdao Medical College and Qingdao Teachers’ College in 1993. It comprises of 25 colleges and about 50000 students.

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They will leave soon to Shanghai and Beijing where they will do a 5 month-internship in their field. They will then come back to Qingdao for 2 more semesters: one filled with numerous design projects with companies like Haier, SEB-Supor and one dedicated to their personal final project.

We wish them good luck for this new year 2009.

From left to right / up to down:

Jules Charbonnet, Pierre-Emmanuel Obéniche, Benoît Vitoux, Clarisse Simonneau, Michael Denié, Victor Bruzeau, Chen Song, Sylvain Gallard, François Rousseau, Anaëlle Perney, Géraldine Thomas, Agathe Philippe, Nicolas Roux, Alice Drougard, Pauline Guérin, Céline Legrand, Aurélie Moyon, Laure-Anne Caillaud (missing: Lucie Bolzec, Adrien Olczack).

From left to right / up to down:

Nicolas Hubert, Cécile Guillet, Isabelle Majou, Anne-Claire Mahéo, Antoine Persyn, Lise Picard, Quentin Tableau, Sébastien Moreau (missing: Anna-Loeke Nossek).

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On Wednesday the 24th of June, the 4th year students of the Chinese programme of L’Ecole de design Nantes Atlantique celebrated the end of the semester.
They will be back on the 31st of August to finish their diploma.

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In April, Wang Difei, the design director of Hisense R&D Center asked the thirteen 4th year students to find design solutions for Hisense domestic electrical appliances, television and electronic devices to expand its markets.

Hisense (海信) is a Chinese electronics manufacturer. Products manufactured under the Hisense brand include televisions, air conditioners, LCDs, refrigerators and mobile phones. It is one of the biggest leading companies in mainland China.

The 13 students spread into 3 groups and presented their design solutions on the 23rd of June in Hisense R&D Center. They came up with a total of 16 different concepts that obviously appealed to Hisense Design Director.

CONCEPT EXAMPLE : LOA – VISIO CONFERENCE SYSTEM (Lise Picard, Quentin Tableau, Rémi Decoene, Anne-Claire Mahéo)

CONCEPT EXAMPLE : GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEM (Lise Picard, Quentin Tableau, Rémi Decoene, Anne-Claire Mahéo)

Some of these concepts will be developed next year. To be continued.

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