WaoBox

Brief: An open brief for the last semester of my degree: Research a problem within your everyday life; execute a design solution.

Problem: Domestic urban environments are noise polluted and often not conducive to creative output.

Solution: I explored how people could use Ambient UI and soundscapes to enhance the quality of a home environment. I created an ambient machine that reflects unique forest soundscapes to help people work, study, sleep, or just relax.

Featuring three unique boxes and soundscapes, each WaoBox tells a story around its respective forest. Going out and hearing the sounds of the Wao (te reo Māori for ‘forest’) was imperative for developing my project. To capture the nuances of each environment, I recorded birds, wind, rain, and water and created ambient soundscapes.
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Three separate ngahere (also ‘forest’) stood out to me with their stories; Pureora, Rakiura, and Waipoua. These ngahere, like all others, have many stories to tell, but these are the stories that resonated with me. Conservation protesters fought for the ancient trees of Pureora over many years and saved it from milling. Rakiura is a coastal forest that shows how Aotearoa was and could be with little human interference, and Waipoua is home to the mighty Tāne-mahuta, (God of the forest) — Aoteoroa’s largest tree).

WaoBox was recognised at New Zealand's premier design competition, The Best Awards, winning two gold pins in web design and product design student categories.