Research Recommendations (856)

Replicate the ALDA method in different social, cultural, and physical contexts to test transferability, identify context effects, and determine whether broader adaptive-lighting patterns emerge beyond the original Portuguese case.

Audience:

Researchers, Lighting Designers, Municipal Decision-Makers

Domain:

Adaptive Public Lighting / Urban Design Research

Scope:

Meso → Macro

Feasibility:

Medium

Develop a concise practitioner manual for the ALDA method, explaining its logic, implementation steps, data collection procedures, and analysis workflow for lighting professionals.

Audience:

Lighting Designers, Engineers, Municipal Technical Teams

Domain:

Professional Practice / Lighting Methods

Scope:

Meso

Feasibility:

High

Apply and adapt the method for elderly users in order to identify needed adjustments for this target group and to test whether adaptive lighting improves perceived well-being and life conditions at multiple levels.

Audience:

Researchers, Lighting Designers, Gerontology Specialists, Ca...

Domain:

Inclusive Lighting / Ageing

Scope:

Meso

Feasibility:

Medium

Advance the implementation of the method in virtual environments, so adaptive-lighting scenarios can be simulated, tested, and analysed more efficiently before real-world deployment.

Audience:

Researchers, Simulation Developers, Lighting Designers

Domain:

Virtual Simulation / Lighting Design Tools

Scope:

Meso

Feasibility:

Medium

Redesign product-design classrooms as flexible active-learning environments with modular height-adjustable tables, quickly adjustable chairs, inclusive wheelchair-accessible stations, generous circulation, and storage for tools and materials.

Audience:

Architects, Educators, Facilities Teams

Domain:

Learning Spaces / Furniture

Scope:

Meso → Macro

Feasibility:

Medium

Provide dense, reconfigurable power and network infrastructure - via wall and floor technical channels, floor boxes, or semi-towers - so portable devices can be used anywhere in the room without constraining seat choice.

Audience:

Architects, Engineers, Facilities Teams

Domain:

Classroom Infrastructure / Power

Scope:

Meso

Feasibility:

Medium-High

Adopt zoned LED and daylight-responsive lighting systems with intuitive local controls, so projection, whiteboard use, paper-based work, and screen-based work can coexist without glare or loss of visual comfort.

Audience:

Lighting Designers, Architects, Facilities Teams

Domain:

Lighting / Environmental Design

Scope:

Meso

Feasibility:

Medium

Integrate centralized thermal control and classroom technologies that support device-to-device and room-to-device interaction, collaborative work, and future portable or emerging design tools.

Audience:

Architects, Educators, IT Teams

Domain:

Smart Learning Environments

Scope:

Meso → Macro

Feasibility:

Medium

Extend the study across institutions and disciplines, examine furniture ergonomics and alternative portable-device forms, incorporate lecturer interviews, and test the cost-effectiveness and learning impact of classroom retrofits.

Audience:

Researchers, Educators, Decision-Makers

Domain:

Design Education Research

Scope:

Meso → Macro

Feasibility:

Medium

Test the addition of intergenerational relationships within the participatory design context in order to verify the effective benefits of those interactions.

Audience:

Researchers, children, older adults, educators, designers

Domain:

Intergenerational Participatory Design / School Contexts

Scope:

Macro

Feasibility:

Medium

Apply and reinterpret the proposed methodology in other participatory-design works so that its actions can be tested beyond the thesis' original topic.

Audience:

Researchers, design students, educators, participatory-desig...

Domain:

Method Transfer / Participatory Design

Scope:

Macro

Feasibility:

High

Use the document as a basis for other researchers to justify the benefits of triangulation between the scientific community, final users, and public/community bodies.

Audience:

Researchers, public bodies, community organizations, users

Domain:

Triangulated Participation / Research Design

Scope:

Macro

Feasibility:

Medium

Promote the growth of participatory and inclusive practices in design research, ensuring that designers respect users' needs, aspirations, and desires, and use design as an instrument to provoke and mobilize society.

Audience:

Researchers, designers, educators, community partners

Domain:

Participatory and Inclusive Design Research Culture

Scope:

Macro

Feasibility:

Medium

Continue the work in the partner schools by executing the agglomerated-cork pieces, evaluating them in context of use, and testing a new version using carpentry waste from Nautilus.

Audience:

Researchers, schools, children, manufacturers, designers

Domain:

School Object Implementation / Cork and Waste Materials

Scope:

Macro

Feasibility:

High

Apply the intervention model at municipal scale, including pilot schemes such as 'A TUA ESCOLA ÉS TU', to test its broader governance and implementation potential.

Audience:

Researchers, municipalities, schools, designers, school mana...

Domain:

Municipal-Scale Application / Inclusive School Model

Scope:

Macro

Feasibility:

Medium

Experiment with the methodology in disadvantaged or at-risk contexts outside Portugal, such as the Inclusive Beirut line of work, in order to test its transferability across socially conflicted environments.

Audience:

Researchers, NGOs, schools, designers, international partner...

Domain:

International Transfer / Vulnerable Contexts

Scope:

Macro

Feasibility:

Medium

Treat privacy as a baseline requirement—not merely a higher-order preference—in future residential solutions for older adults, anticipating more informed and more demanding cohorts of residents.

Audience:

Architects, Care Providers, Policymakers

Domain:

Elder Housing / Privacy

Scope:

Macro

Feasibility:

Medium

Translate contemporary thinking on environmental influence, psychological and physical well-being, and active ageing into future residential solutions that better match the expectations and aspirations of older adults.

Audience:

Architects, Environmental Designers, Care-Housing Developers

Domain:

Environmental Gerontology / Housing Design

Scope:

Macro

Feasibility:

Medium

Critically rethink the inherited institutional character of elder housing and develop innovative, home-like residential models that break with unexamined architectural traditions no longer aligned with recent social and cultural change.

Audience:

Architects, Care-Housing Clients, Policymakers

Domain:

Residential Typology / Elder Care Infrastructure

Scope:

Macro

Feasibility:

Medium

Develop versatile and adaptable environments able to accommodate residents with very different cognitive capacities, and study how architecture and design can support such adaptation without compromising safety or daily functioning.

Audience:

Architects, Care Providers, Dementia-Care Specialists

Domain:

Dementia-Sensitive Environments / Adaptable Housing

Scope:

Meso → Macro

Feasibility:

Medium

Use architecture and environmental design to create residential settings that respond to the needs and aspirations of present and future older adults while respecting their cultural and identity matrices.

Audience:

Architects, Designers, Care-Housing Providers

Domain:

Cultural Identity / Ageing Environments

Scope:

Macro

Feasibility:

Medium-High

Streamline the regulatory-conformity and CE-marking pathway for user-centered prosthetic devices so validated concepts can reach users faster, more economically, and with less development rework.

Audience:

Designers, Manufacturers, Regulatory Specialists

Domain:

Medical Device Development / Compliance

Scope:

Meso

Feasibility:

Medium

Optimize the aesthetic image-acquisition and surface-treatment workflow, and develop a procedures-and-use manual as an associated service, to make prosthetic customization faster, clearer, and more reproducible.

Audience:

Designers, Prosthetic Clinics, Manufacturers

Domain:

Prosthetic Customization / Service Design

Scope:

Meso

Feasibility:

High

Extend body-related design research beyond rehabilitation devices toward human-enhancement scenarios, while building explicit ethical frameworks for design interventions associated with the body.

Audience:

Researchers, Designers, Bioethicists

Domain:

Body-Related Design / Ethics

Scope:

Macro

Feasibility:

Medium

Apply and adapt the SAMS-derived design guidelines in other elderly-home gardens, but always validate them with target-specific inquiry in each institution rather than treating them as universal standards.

Audience:

Landscape Architects, Care-Home Managers, Researchers

Domain:

Eldercare Garden Guidelines

Scope:

Meso

Feasibility:

High