Tom Barker (designer)

For the American basketball player, see Tom Barker (basketball).

Tom Barker (b. 1966) is a British architect, designer, engineer and academic. Since 1 January 2004,^[1] he is the professor (the youngest appointed),^[2]^[3] and head of the Department of Industrial Design Engineering (IDE) at the London Royal College of Art,^[4] the world's only postgraduate school of art and design.

Tom Barker invented SmartSlab,^[5]^[6]^[7] a multimedia large scale digital LED display panel system for urban areas, in 1999. In addition to numerous SmartSlab patents, Barker has been responsible for over 10 patents on other technologies.^[3] He created and ran a product design group at Ove Arup & Partners consultant engineers for six years.^[3] He set up his own company, b consultants ltd,^[6] engineers and building designers in London, with the support of DCA Design International,^[8] Warwick in 1997.

Barker's book, Weird Scenes from Inside the Goldmine,^[9] considers the nature of creativity and its role in innovation. This has been a theme of several international experimental projects which he has undertaken as part of a Go global initiative with postgraduate students of the RCA and Tsinghua University in Beijing, China (2005 and 2007) and with the Thailand government design centre, TCDC (2006). Planning is underway for design and production projects in Uganda with adult orphaned survivors of the Idi Amin regime, and on the Future of Food in Japan with Tsukuba University. Future project plans include UNESCO as partners, and fairtrade accredited designs. His work on the nature of creativity also forms the theme of a design fellowship with social economist Garrick Jones of the London School of Economics.

Projects undertaken by Barker include: 12 story eco tower for the Peabody Trust; modular building systems for the Hanssem Corporation in South Korea; composite panels for the oil industry; structures for theatre projects; project engineer for the capsules and boarding system of the London Eye Millennium Wheel; photovoltaic solar products for BP Solar; new technologies on 5 zones in the Millennium Dome (including structural cardboard, GRP composites, super aluminium alloys, and fabric systems); folding refugee shelters; a Bluetooth wireless headset for Emkay. He has also developed V/SpaceLAB, a virtual reality system for architecture using game engine technology; the Masterplanning Tool, a digital city planning system, and Curvatex,^[10] a curved building composite technology.

References

^ "Royal College of Art appoints new Head of Industrial Design Engineering". British Design Innovation. 5 March 2004. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
^ Prof. RCA Tom Barker, b consultants, London (5 December 2005, organised by Studio Hadid). "Lecture: What is now proved was once only imagined". University of Applied Arts Vienna Institute of Architecture. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^ ^a ^b ^c Royal College of Art. "Tom Barker: Professor". Tom Barker is a designer, director of b consultants, SmartSlab UK and the Professor of Industrial Design Engineering at the Royal College of Art. A graduate of Edinburgh University, Professor Barker also holds two Masters degrees from the University of Cambridge and the Royal College of Art/Imperial College London.
^ Royal College of Art. "Industrial Design Engineering: IDE Research Center". (Staff page). {{cite web}}: External link in |work= (help)
^ Alistair King (6 July 2007). "Slab happy". Building. The inventors of SmartSlab describe it as an all-in-one, load-bearing, moving-image display slab. It's also the only system that provides animated displays while retaining all the features associated with external cladding.
"The problem first presented itself to professor Tom Barker when he collaborated with architect Zaha Hadid on the Millennium Dome's Mind Zone. The ambient light of the dome prevented many exhibitors from projecting images onto screens, so simple LED display boards tended to be used. But Barker, then a full-time engineer, and Hadid wanted to show moving images on a floor that visitors would walk on, so a more innovative solution was needed. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
^ ^a ^b Ruairi Glynn, The Bartlett (13 May 2005). "SMARTSLAB™". Interactive Architecture. Tom Barker, an RCA graduate, runs b consultants ltd, an architectural consultancy responsible for the invention of an amazing multi media display system called SMARTSLAB™. While working with Zaha Hadid on the Mind Zone at the Millennium Dome, Tom created a translucent, structural panel consisting of a honeycomb aluminium composite sandwiched between clear fiberglass resin. Fusing structure with media, he put LEDs into the honeycomb cells creating a 'high tech stained glass'. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
^ Laurie Manfra (April 2005). "Light Tiles: SmartSlab LED panels flaunt superior graphics for everything from small-scale interiors to billboards". Metropolis Magazine (subscription only; April 2005 table of contents). {{cite web}}: External link in |work= (help)
^ DCA Design International website.
^ Weird Scenes from Inside the Goldmine: Innovating with Futuristic Technology and Amazing Materials in Design. Tom Barker. Shoreditch: Black Dog Publishing, 2007. ISBN 978-1906155278, ASIN 1906155275.
^ "Material gain". Design Week. 7 November 2002. Barker is also working on a range of other new composite materials, including Curvatex, a blend of Lycra fabric, loose woven glass fibre and stretchable foam that can be curved, warped and hardened on site by brushing it with resin. It was developed with architect DLM for the British Council's touring exhibition, Fabric of Fashion, and Barker is talking to Will Alsop about using it to create the complex curves for an education pod called the Centre of the Cell in the hi-tech research facility he is designing for Queen Mary University of London. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); External link in |quote= (help)

Tom Barker, "Reach and grasp," Building, 2004 issue 23.
Jonathan Bell, "New communicators," Blueprint, June 2002, p. 76.

[name-1] "Royal College of Art appoints new Head of Industrial Design Engineering". British Design Innovation. 5 March 2004. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

[BarkerLectureUAAV-2] Prof. RCA Tom Barker, b consultants, London (5 December 2005, organised by Studio Hadid). "Lecture: What is now proved was once only imagined". University of Applied Arts Vienna Institute of Architecture. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

[BarkerHeadOfDepartmentIDE-3] Royal College of Art. "Tom Barker: Professor". Tom Barker is a designer, director of b consultants, SmartSlab UK and the Professor of Industrial Design Engineering at the Royal College of Art. A graduate of Edinburgh University, Professor Barker also holds two Masters degrees from the University of Cambridge and the Royal College of Art/Imperial College London.

[BarkerStaffIDE-4] Royal College of Art. "Industrial Design Engineering: IDE Research Center". (Staff page). {{cite web}}: External link in |work= (help)

[KingSlabhappyBuilding-5] Alistair King (6 July 2007). "Slab happy". Building. The inventors of SmartSlab describe it as an all-in-one, load-bearing, moving-image display slab. It's also the only system that provides animated displays while retaining all the features associated with external cladding.
"The problem first presented itself to professor Tom Barker when he collaborated with architect Zaha Hadid on the Millennium Dome's Mind Zone. The ambient light of the dome prevented many exhibitors from projecting images onto screens, so simple LED display boards tended to be used. But Barker, then a full-time engineer, and Hadid wanted to show moving images on a floor that visitors would walk on, so a more innovative solution was needed. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

[GlynnInteractive-6] Ruairi Glynn, The Bartlett (13 May 2005). "SMARTSLAB™". Interactive Architecture. Tom Barker, an RCA graduate, runs b consultants ltd, an architectural consultancy responsible for the invention of an amazing multi media display system called SMARTSLAB™. While working with Zaha Hadid on the Mind Zone at the Millennium Dome, Tom created a translucent, structural panel consisting of a honeycomb aluminium composite sandwiched between clear fiberglass resin. Fusing structure with media, he put LEDs into the honeycomb cells creating a 'high tech stained glass'. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

[ManfraMetropolis-7] Laurie Manfra (April 2005). "Light Tiles: SmartSlab LED panels flaunt superior graphics for everything from small-scale interiors to billboards". Metropolis Magazine (subscription only; April 2005 table of contents). {{cite web}}: External link in |work= (help)

[8] DCA Design International website.

[9] Weird Scenes from Inside the Goldmine: Innovating with Futuristic Technology and Amazing Materials in Design. Tom Barker. Shoreditch: Black Dog Publishing, 2007. ISBN 978-1906155278, ASIN 1906155275.

[CurvatexDesignMad-10] "Material gain". Design Week. 7 November 2002. Barker is also working on a range of other new composite materials, including Curvatex, a blend of Lycra fabric, loose woven glass fibre and stretchable foam that can be curved, warped and hardened on site by brushing it with resin. It was developed with architect DLM for the British Council's touring exhibition, Fabric of Fashion, and Barker is talking to Will Alsop about using it to create the complex curves for an education pod called the Centre of the Cell in the hi-tech research facility he is designing for Queen Mary University of London. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); External link in |quote= (help)

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