Life in Örebro (Swedish Experiences)

Random Swedish happenings and shenanigans while I lived in Örebro that add to the whole Swedish experience.

Örebro Slott - not a super exciting winters day in Örebro, but the castle still is nice.

Walpurgisnacht (Walpugis Night) - Big night in Sweden, and in this shot, a choir singing in front of Örebro Slott, with the bonfire on the water.

Fireworks Walpurgisnacht Finale



Free kanelbullar (cinnamon buns) at Maskin Expo - mmm Swedish



Swedish Countryside - on the way back from Maskin Expo near Arlanda.

As Swedish as it gets - On the Swedish National Holiday (June 6th), I helped my friend and co-worker Nirvana get some new furniture and move into her new place. Björn, another friend and co-worker let us borrow his Volvo 740. Took about 45 minutes to pack the car seen here - it was kinda like Tetris. Nirvana was a bit sceptical it would all fit, but my sunny optimism won her over.

Bland Sallad - Sure it makes sense in Swedish, but when you read it as an English speaker, well, it does seem bland (aptly named?)

Last day of work - my final day of Internship at Atlas Copco, and we (me and some of the summer interns and new employees) got to go down to the test mine to check out some drill rigs in action.

Rocheforte 10 - Ok, so not so Swedish, but this is one of my all-time favourite beers, and to find it only a week or so before leaving Örebro had me asking myself how I hadn't found this pub earlier.

Svenske Midsommar (Swedish Midsummer) - kinda the biggest event of the year in Sweden, time to enjoy the longest day of the year, the endless (if it's a sunny day) sunlight, as well as great Swedish food and drink. This garden party was at Björn's.

Midsommar på Örebro slott - my final days in Örebro before taking my Canadian summer vacation, and moving on to the next place and adventure in August. I think this was as dark as it got that evening.



Örebro C - departing Örebro

Örebro - Umeå Train Trip

Took the train from Örebro all the way up to Umeå, chasing the sun north, for UID Design Talks '13. It was a great trip. This time of year, taking the train through the day is a great way to see Sweden. I arrived in Umeå a little after 23:00, and this was only about a half hour past sunset! So obviously it was also still bright.
Even better then that, starting the day in Örebro it was grey, rainy, and about 16C. By the time I was almost in Umeå, it was bright, sunny, and one of the warmest spots in all of Europe. It was crazy - people were walking around in shorts and tank-tops, as if it were the south of Europe, and were nicely bronzed from having had 4 weeks of sunshine and beautiful weather! (shown fairly nicely here in pictures)
I could only wish for the same next year.

Örebro / Hallsberg - starting point, first leg of 3 on the SJ X40 double decker

Hallsberg Station - a 1 hour wait for the next train

Hallsberg / Stockholm - aboard the SJ 2000 for leg 2 of the journey, and the weather was still grey, rainy, and not especially warm

Stockholm / Umeå - leaving Stockholm aboard the SJ3000 at the start of leg 3 of the journey (the longest part), and the weather still looks crappy, albeit better then when I left Örebro

SJ3000 Luxury - the super new, high speed trains in Sweden with lots of space in a roomy very nice, very Swedish interior (here you might notice the shelves between the seats and the windows that are about ample enough for a handbag)

Gävle C - weather is clearing up, and looking a bit better

Approximately an hour till sunset - weather is starting to look real nice

Höga Kusten (Swedish High Coast) - weather is really nice

This is the point at which I concluded Sweden is actually composed of 90% forests, 8% trees they just cut down, and 2% is everything else

Örnsköldsvik - right about sunset, and just a bit to go until reaching Umeå, with really beautiful weather

Umeå Östra - arrival in Umeå at last, and it seems surreal, with weather this beautiful, and the endless daylight (if you look real close you can see the clock on the platform says it's almost 23:00, and the sun looks to not have set yet)

Designer Breakfast - after a night of helping fellow Umeå APD's on their models before the exhibition, and returning to the hotel very late, Carlos, Natalie and I headed to a patio on the way to school (where free food was to be served anyways)

UID'13 Design Talks

What's better then chocolate for Easter? Legoland!

For Easter holiday, I took the train for a long weekend down to Denmark. Had a quick 1 day stop in Copenhagen, and then on to Aarhus, where I met fellow MA APD classmate from Umeå, Carlos. We toured ARoS - Aarhus Museum of Modern Art.
That evening we took the train on to Vejle, to then catch the bus to Billund - home of Lego!
Next day we went to Legoland!

Giant, life like statue - very creepy, and cool

Blue Powder - the whole of this artwork looked like a 3m x 6m or so metal frame, surrounding cobalt blue pigment on the floor

Kid with an axe - for some reason, I really liked this one, the cartoon styling, the life-size scale, the story it could tell

Rainbow ring - glassed in walkway sitting atop the museum - provides a great view over Aarhus, as well as some colours feeling a bit hard on the eyes

Legoland - the gates to where every child must dream of at some point in time!

Lego Amsterdam - a great hommage, I'm home

Ice Pilots School - for me, the highlight of the Legoland park was this ride, where you cue up in pairs, get a card which you insert in a machine; you then get to select from a touch screen menu the combination of movements you want to experience on the ride (more extreme if you're tall enough to be considered adult); it then spits the card with your selection out, you walk over to the platform infront of the large robot arms (like the ones used on factory assembly lines), insert it, climb aboard, and away you go - I literally started laughing like a giddy school child as soon as it started to go

Shape-shifting facade - the facade to one of the new buildings for Lego in Billund, with operable metal mesh shutters, to control the daylight

MA APD - Term 3, Part 2: Home Fire Safety Project

Falling a little bit behind again with posting, as with getting other things done.

I still have to outstanding (not in that positive kinda way) project reports to complete before my return to Umeå, as well as figuring out my thesis project before then as well.

But still, figured even though it doesn't feel as complete as I'd like, maybe posting this here will be some motivation to work on it to further complete my stuff and get it done.

The Autumn Term 2012 project was for 'Home Fire Safety'. My results more or less presented here in video. Still a work-in-progress.
I've made the video password protected since it does not really feel complete to me.
 If you'd like to watch it, just ask me for the password.



SAFETY+
Concept for a line of home safety equipment with a focus on fire safety. Through a strong product identity, simple and domestic design, the products maintain a dignity that encourages people to not just have these items in their home to be safe, but be proud to own and display them.

Term Project #3: Home Fire Safety Presentation, 2012.12.13
MA Advanced Product Design
Umeå Institute of Design

SAFETY+ my final concept design as presented at the conclusion of the project

Moved.... again.

On the 17th of December, I rented a car in Umeå, packed all of my stuff there into it, and drove some 9 hours south, south-west, arriving at my new home for the next few months in Örebro.

Bridge leaving Umeå, start of the trip - on Kolbäcksvägen (not sure if there's a name for the bridge or not).

For anyone needing my new digits:


William van Beek
Köping-Hultgatan 4/809
703 63 Örebro
Sweden

Very happy and excited to be starting my internship tomorrow with Atlas Copco.

MA APD - Term 3, Part 1: Visual Design Prototyping

Part 1 of the third term, was 4 weeks long - 'Visual Design Prototyping', a storytelling course where we are given the challenge of creating a 1 minute long video, telling the story for one of our previous projects.

Here are the results of my first real attempt in film:



Hydrologic is a closed loop laundry system that is not connected to the home's water infrastructure.
The water inside runs through a series of filters and bio-filters to be recycled in a continuous loop, thus preventing any harmful chemicals from entering the water system.

Visual Storytelling Course
MA Advanced Product Design
Umeå Institute of Design

Umeå Intermission Part 3: Summer (working) Holiday

The summer had me back in Canada, helping on the farm, and also occasionally visiting friends.

It was good to be back.

Super hipster Canada Day - in Almonte at Peter and Danielle's

Warm and Dry - I had but one word to describe the weather of the past summer in Ontario: Oppressive - this picture was taken in the shade!

Foodie Weekend - on one of my trips to Ottawa, Grace and I had a pretty unrivalled 24hr foodie experience

Home on the range - some nice cloud formations (I think this was shortly before something stung me in the leg - just my luck)

Behind the barns

Summer sunset on the farm

Moo - a shot of the girls just before I left for the memories

End of MA APD Year 1

The first year in Umeå was great!

Umeå is really a unique and cool place to live, and UID is a really really great school, delivering a great experience, great projects, all on a really high level.

The daylight, from super short days to super long really messed with me (and many other people I'm sure).  The days around the start of June were amazing, and to bike home at 02:00 felt like having completed an all-nighter and be biking home at 07:00.

00:06 in Umeå - May 15th

Umeå at 03:20 - June 1st

Umeå at 03:20 - June 9th

Midnight in Umeå - June 9th

MA APD - Term 2, Part 3: Strategic Design Project

Part 3 of the second term, was 11 weeks long - 'Sensing the Future', a strategic design project in sponsored collaboration with Whirlpool.

This was an interesting project giving the opportunity to test out my ideas and visions for strategic design - an area that seems to be interesting me more and more these days.

With the theme 'Sensing the Future', (one of Whirlpool's research and design initiatives to imagine solutions that would enhance the evolution of the domestic experience), I decided to look into laundry as a general topic.  For some background context:

Global Distribution of the World's Water - To give a little perspective on how precious and scarce freshwater really is

Levi's WaterLess Jeans - campaign where Levi's is making strides in production processes and technology to reduce their water consumption in jeans production - Shows how other major global players are taking pro-active steps towards tackling such issues as water consumption and pollution

Common Core - as one of our exercises into strategic design, in groups we made an abstraction of the current brand design language, interpreting a range of their appliances, into this 3D shape, including both logo sizing/placement, as well as a bit of CMF

Brainstorm Session - we brainstormed together in a group on the already identified project directions

Laundry Machine/System Concept - my initial concept sketch

Future Common Core - as part of the process to identify what the future design language manifested in the product we would create would be, we also created a future version of the common core

hydrologic - my final concept design as presented at the conclusion of the project