1a.

The design challenge identified to tackle is:

How might we design a user-friendly hostel room in the new IIM Trichy hostel block?

1b. The list of users who would help us learn more about the design challenge are:
1. Students: They will be the ones staying in the hostel, thus making it important for us
to understand their expectations from a user-friendly hostel room. Also, know about
their current stay and the problems that they face. The views of a diverse selection of
students will be taken.
2. Alumni: To gauge the perspective of a person who had stayed in hostel before we got
the permanent campus, to learn their experience and understand their expectation
about how a hostel must be for their juniors.
3. Infrastructure managers: They are responsible to maintain the infrastructure, it will
be important to know their point of view of a user-friendly hostel room and the
possible limitations that we must keep in mind while designing the same.
4. Staff: The staff at IIM Trichy stay in campus, thus it will be interesting to know their
perspective about the stay and their point of view about how hostels should be.
5. Parents: are emotionally and financially vested with the child and thus, gathering
their point of view may give us a new perspective of a comfortable hostel room.

1c. List of experts who would help us learn about the design challenge:
1. Architects: Are experts in designing buildings. Understanding their experience in
designing hostel blocks and hostel rooms will help us come up with innovative
designs for the to-be constructed hostel block and user-friendly hostel rooms
2. Interior Designers: Are experts in designing the interiors of buildings and houses.
They will help us gauge the latest trends and designs, and to understand their views
about a user-friendly hostel room. Also, learn about their previous experiences to help
us get a broader perspective.
3. Maintenance team: Is the team that is responsible to maintain cleanliness and order
in hostels. They will help us list the problems that they face in the current design of
hostel rooms.

1d. The list of in-context immersion locations where you need to observe and learn about
your design challenge
1. Existing hostel block and rooms: Will give us a base standard of the hostel rooms
that currently exist at IIM Trichy. Observing the blocks and rooms will help us gauge
the way students use the rooms and to understand the problems they face. This will be
helpful while designing the new rooms.
 2. Staff quarters: Are present within the campus, observing them will help us
understand the way staff quarters are designed, giving us insights and ideas about
improvement in the new hostel rooms
3. Rooms across tier groups: Observing hostel rooms, of colleges across tiers will help
us understand the way their hostel rooms are designed. For eg. A college has
apartments which are used as hostels
4. Co-living spaces: There has been a surge in co-living places in several metro cities.
Companies like Co-live, Oyo(Oyo life) offer shared accommodation with several
innovations like, app based apartment lock which can be used in hostels to replace
traditional lock and key

1e. List of analogous immersion locations where you need to observe and learn about your
design challenge:
1. Hotels: Are places where people stay for leisure, and high degree of comfort. Thus,
we can get an idea to design the hostel room from hotels to make them comfortable
and user friendly.
2. Backpacker hostels: Are co-living spaces which are preferred by backpackers or solo
travellers. These places are light on pocket and are smartly designed to allow high
degree of interaction amongst the guests. They have a common room with recreation
facilities where guests can meet and network.
3. Personal rooms at home: Observing the rooms will give us an idea about the type of
comfort that a student gets at home and we can inculcate it in the design process.
4. Studio apartments: Are small apartments designed for 1 or 2 people to stay with a
small kitchen area. This might help us to come up with a design for the hostel room.