Seascape - SSC A6

A Co-Creative Challenge for a Symbiosis of Cruising and Racing

Client

Bénéteau

Year(s)

2018

A project that merged the insights from sailing enthusiasts with the project team’s expertise and the design studio’s unconventional research approach, uncontaminated by the industry.

Others about us:

  • Using Intuido, we were able to collect more than 300 insights in just 2 weeks, providing us with a better understanding of our users, their experiences and needs. The tool also enabled us to create organised and well-structured innovation guidelines that will help shape the development of our products and services in the future.

    Matija Torlak

    Product Director

    ,

    Plastika Skaza

  • Sustainability is a core value at Intra Lighting, but often takes a back seat to quality, modularity, and culture, relying on individual employees. Efforts lacked consistent management and communication. Our collaboration sought to create a comprehensive sustainability strategy, with workshops producing valuable content for future solutions.

    Nika Furlan

    Head of Marketing

    ,

    Intra Lighting

  • Excellent collaboration that provided employees with the opportunity to express their needs and expectations for the new space and professionally guided the process through which we aligned priorities.

    Martina Knavs

    Strategic Projects

    ,

    Jožef Štefan Insitute

  • Design research process proved essential in defining innovation opportunities when developing our sailing boats. It is exciting to hear that this process is now available in digital form.

    Andraž Mihelin

    CEO

    ,

    Seascape

  • AMZS has a rich tradition yet faces mobility challenges. Flexibility, agility, and innovation drive our mission. We grow as individuals and teams. To communicate our mission, we partnered with Sito, enabling us to overcome challenges and co-create efficient paths for new offers and upgrades.

    Lucija Sajevec

    CEO

    ,

    AMZS

  • Over the duration of the project, our company has grown from 4 to 14 employees and has entered the US and Australian markets. Thanks to KCDM, we started using service design and began systematically managing our design processes.

    Andraž Mihelin

    CEO

    ,

    Seascape

  • Throughout the entire process, we have learned from Sito that we cannot address and resolve different needs and requirements using the methods we have known and been accustomed to until now. This is a significant gain that will help us in the development of our entire business, not just in space planning.

    Marin Medak

    Founder

    ,

    Della Spina

Others about us:

  • AMZS has a rich tradition yet faces mobility challenges. Flexibility, agility, and innovation drive our mission. We grow as individuals and teams. To communicate our mission, we partnered with Sito, enabling us to overcome challenges and co-create efficient paths for new offers and upgrades.

    Lucija Sajevec

    CEO

    ,

    AMZS

  • Throughout the entire process, we have learned from Sito that we cannot address and resolve different needs and requirements using the methods we have known and been accustomed to until now. This is a significant gain that will help us in the development of our entire business, not just in space planning.

    Marin Medak

    Founder

    ,

    Della Spina

  • Design research process proved essential in defining innovation opportunities when developing our sailing boats. It is exciting to hear that this process is now available in digital form.

    Andraž Mihelin

    CEO

    ,

    Seascape

  • Over the duration of the project, our company has grown from 4 to 14 employees and has entered the US and Australian markets. Thanks to KCDM, we started using service design and began systematically managing our design processes.

    Andraž Mihelin

    CEO

    ,

    Seascape

  • Excellent collaboration that provided employees with the opportunity to express their needs and expectations for the new space and professionally guided the process through which we aligned priorities.

    Martina Knavs

    Strategic Projects

    ,

    Jožef Štefan Insitute

  • Using Intuido, we were able to collect more than 300 insights in just 2 weeks, providing us with a better understanding of our users, their experiences and needs. The tool also enabled us to create organised and well-structured innovation guidelines that will help shape the development of our products and services in the future.

    Matija Torlak

    Product Director

    ,

    Plastika Skaza

  • Sustainability is a core value at Intra Lighting, but often takes a back seat to quality, modularity, and culture, relying on individual employees. Efforts lacked consistent management and communication. Our collaboration sought to create a comprehensive sustainability strategy, with workshops producing valuable content for future solutions.

    Nika Furlan

    Head of Marketing

    ,

    Intra Lighting

Others about us:

  • Over the duration of the project, our company has grown from 4 to 14 employees and has entered the US and Australian markets. Thanks to KCDM, we started using service design and began systematically managing our design processes.

    Andraž Mihelin

    CEO

    ,

    Seascape

  • Excellent collaboration that provided employees with the opportunity to express their needs and expectations for the new space and professionally guided the process through which we aligned priorities.

    Martina Knavs

    Strategic Projects

    ,

    Jožef Štefan Insitute

  • Design research process proved essential in defining innovation opportunities when developing our sailing boats. It is exciting to hear that this process is now available in digital form.

    Andraž Mihelin

    CEO

    ,

    Seascape

  • Sustainability is a core value at Intra Lighting, but often takes a back seat to quality, modularity, and culture, relying on individual employees. Efforts lacked consistent management and communication. Our collaboration sought to create a comprehensive sustainability strategy, with workshops producing valuable content for future solutions.

    Nika Furlan

    Head of Marketing

    ,

    Intra Lighting

  • Using Intuido, we were able to collect more than 300 insights in just 2 weeks, providing us with a better understanding of our users, their experiences and needs. The tool also enabled us to create organised and well-structured innovation guidelines that will help shape the development of our products and services in the future.

    Matija Torlak

    Product Director

    ,

    Plastika Skaza

  • AMZS has a rich tradition yet faces mobility challenges. Flexibility, agility, and innovation drive our mission. We grow as individuals and teams. To communicate our mission, we partnered with Sito, enabling us to overcome challenges and co-create efficient paths for new offers and upgrades.

    Lucija Sajevec

    CEO

    ,

    AMZS

  • Throughout the entire process, we have learned from Sito that we cannot address and resolve different needs and requirements using the methods we have known and been accustomed to until now. This is a significant gain that will help us in the development of our entire business, not just in space planning.

    Marin Medak

    Founder

    ,

    Della Spina

The Challenge

Bénéteau has been building sailing yachts and motorboats for all types of boating practices since 1884. In 2018 the company acquired Gigodesign’s long-term client, the Slovenian sports sailboats manufacturer Seascape. With this new project, Bénéteau/Seascape was looking for a new niche in yachting that would provide not only ergonomic and comfortable space, but also take the sailing experience on a new level.

While Gigodesign may not have been a nautical design expert, it relied on its high expertise in innovative solutions based on thorough and creative design research. The early innovation process was initiated by an in-depth design research phase that consisted of several steps. It focused on different types of users: families, couples, sports sailors, boat dealers, racers, combined with a specific sailing style (e.g. daily sailing, coastal cruising, coastal/club racing, training, nightsailing, offshore).

Our Approach

What perhaps set this research apart from the others was that it really aimed to be as close as possible to the end user; to the point where sailing enthusiasts were involved in the project almost as prosumers. We wanted to gather first-hand insights from those who were actively involved in sailing, expert sailing users who enjoyed the wind, the speed and the adrenaline. Our goal was to envision a boat which would offer the excitedness of fast sailing and at the same time allow these enthusiasts to share this passion with their families who were more inclined to seek out comfort and relaxation.

After having conducted 18 interviews (from end users, dealers, sailing instructors, to charter operators, boat constructor and others), we developed a Usage matrix that helped us indicate the most or least frequent modes of use. The results provided by the matrix were used in later stages of the project. All the recruited persons were later synthesised into personas – a tool we employed to check our decisions later in a simulated environment in fast iterations.

Another asset of Gigodesign's team was the selection of methods, tools and the proposal for conducting a survey. For gaining insight into the field of nautical architecture and hydrodynamics, an interview was conducted with the nautical architect Sam Manuard. We visited a production facility comparable to the project requrements and gained knowledge in the field of GRP technologies in the racing segment. The new knowledge wwas used in later stages for testing in a simulated environment and gor preparing solutions optimised for the intended means of production and assembly.

We also supported the recruitment of users for a qualitative and anthropological research of user needs in relation to functional and aesthetic product qualities. We additionally recruited Bénéteau’s distribution network in America, Europe and Australia, as they offer a specific insight into ways of use on these three continents, which is not comparable to the European market, on which the first research sample was focused.

The Outcomes

What made this boat design process so special was that it detected the desired cruising experience. It then really strived to bring together the leisure of yachting and the speed of racing. This was achieved by making the process as co-creative as possible from the early stages, by bringing in the right users we needed – sailing experts and with their families – and by pushing the boundaries and breaking the conventions of the nautical industry. It’s what helped us shape the sought-after experience the industry didn’t even know it lacked.

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What is the vision for your brand?

How do you see your industry going forward?

Get in touch to increase your product success rates and build a resilient, future-ready product portfolio with us:

What is the vision for your brand?

How do you see your industry going forward?

Get in touch to increase your product success rates and build a resilient, future-ready product portfolio with us: