Dundee Waterfront

Yesterday Annabella and I went to Tayside House to find out about the Dundee Waterfront redevelopment. We thought that it might be interesting to look at in regards to the DIR project as their vision has some similarities to ours. Their vision is "to transform, energise and connect the city to the waterfront, threading the city and water together to create a special sense of place". We were lucky enough to meet with Les Banks from the Planning and Transportation Department, who shared a great deal of information on the project, and explained the whole process and the wider factors that effect it's progress. He also talked us through the recent 3D animation, and explained the reasoning behind many of the new waterfront's features.

I found the meeting really useful, particularly for the DIR project but also in regards to my own interests in urban design. It was surprising to see the large amount of factors and considerations that have to be consulted when undertaking a project as large as this - traffic counts, local business losses during Christmas, local residents opinions on the greenery and the strengthening of the rail tunnel were just a few of the things mentioned.

Ethnography and Architectural Design

While browsing the Anthrodesign group for examples of ethnographic fieldwork used in an urban/public space environment I came across a few interesting questions which led to suggested reading and links. I found a link to this Space and Place listserv as well, and I've tried signing up to it although it seems a bit complicated.

At Peter Merholz's blog peterme.com I found an old post, which talks about the value that anthropological thought can bring to the design world. In the post he mentioned an architectural firm MKThink, who had used an anthropologist to help them "move beyond standard architectural practice and consider ethnography as a method toward constructing better built environments". I think they might be worth contacting in relation to my project, possibly just to gain a better sense of the role that ethnography could play in urban design.

MKThink designed the new AT&T Park concourse

I think I'd like to explore this idea in the Summer. I'm keen to see how ethnography can be used to help design the environments we live in - from public parks to city centres.

I (heart) public space

After a discussion with Catriona today I feel a bit happier about the direction for my 3rd semester project. For a while it seemed to be moving towards an exploratory kind of research project, where I would open up a range of questions or issues. As we agreed I am a more problem solving oriented person, and so need a project which relates to this. We discussed the possibility of observing how crowds of people behave in somewhere like a train station and so the project summary would be something like:

"Provide train station designers with insights into how to design a station concourse" and these insights would be formed from the observations etc. from my research.

I had a little browse for ideas this evening and came across The Design Trust for Public Space, who are trying to improve the design of New York's public spaces i.e. streets, plazas, parks and buildings by working with a variety of people. Some of their stuff is really cool and they seem to appreciate the likes of sustainability, innovation and generally making the world a better place.

The project that resonated with me the most was Problems and Possibilities: Re-imagining the Pedestrian Environment in Times Square. The report illustrates the problems, some insights and ideas, and some solutions. It's the sort of project I could see myself working on, where I would be working with a variety of people from different communities and looking to solve problems and issues through design thinking.

Their blog, I (heart) Public Space, has even more information and other ideas around the theme of public space. And what's more they love a bit of ping pong! 

Interactions in the Urban Environment

I'm still researching into interactions in the urban environment for my project in the Summer. I read The street as platform by Dan Hill at City of Sound.

I really liked the narrative account he portrayed to describe the "data cloud" that has become invisible to us as we go about our daily lives.

"We can’t see how the street is immersed in a twitching, pulsing cloud of data. This is over and above the well-established electromagnetic radiation, crackles of static, radio waves conveying radio and television broadcasts in digital and analogue forms, police voice traffic. This is a new kind of data, collective and individual, aggregated and discrete, open and closed, constantly logging impossibly detailed patterns of behaviour. The behaviour of the street.

Such data emerges from the feet of three friends, grimly jogging past, whose Nike+ shoes track the frequency and duration of every step, comparing against pre-set targets for each individual runner. This is cross-referenced with playlist data emerging from their three iPods. Similar performance data is being captured in the engine control systems of a stationary BMW waiting at a traffic light, beaming information back to the BMW service centre associated with the car’s owner."

It was a fascinating read, and reminded me of some science fiction writing, like Snow Crash, which I read a couple of years ago in relation to an undergrad project on the future of interactive entertainment. However, as Dan states, this is not fictional and the technology described is either already in place, or could be used for the concepts illustrated. 

It is interesting how he mentions that systems will be rarely used if they are not adequate or suitable for the user's needs:

"An on-street information kiosk stands beside the screen, offering a scrollable map of the local area and directory of local businesses. It’s little-used, as the directory of businesses was always incomplete and intermittently updated, its data now rusty and eroded by time."

The 11th Hour

In our current People and Design project we have been given the task of envisioning a future society in 2108. We also have to imagine a ritual that our society would partake in and then embody this through design.

We have had a series of lectures to get us thinking a lot about issues such as climate change, and how they will have a large effect on what the world will be like in a hundred years. My group have been doing a bit of research and we have set up a blog here to illustrate our process.

I've been doing a bit of my own research into the area, mainly by watching the two films An Inconvenient Truth and The 11th Hour.

Both of them bring up some pretty astonishing facts and statistics, and I'd say a lot of them are quite disturbing. We have been asked to consider what we think the main drivers of the issues that will affect the future of earth. Even though the glaring issues are global warming, soil erosion, fossil fuel depletion, population growth, from watching these films it is plain to see that the problem is humankind, and our disillusionment that we are separate from nature.  

I am interested to look at the positive side, in the 11th Hour it says that this could be the generation to turn things round and make a difference. I've been looking at sustainable design and how it could have a great impact. Bruce Mau's book Massive Change presents some really interesting thinking, and provides possible solutions for the future.

Design for Social Inclusion

Whilst doing a bit of research into the group project I found a few interesting articles and initiatives. The Public Sphere Project talks about using technology for social engagement of the aged.

I also came across the concept of Telecentres, which revolves around the idea of bringing people in a community together to a physical, public space, which allows them to access information, predominantly through digital means. Whilst looking into them I found this report on the sustainability of telecentres and how to help them adapt and evolve in a changing world. They generally seem to be in countries outside the UK although I feel there may be some relevant information which could relate in how to design inclusively.

Lastly I looked at a how the issue of social inclusion was dealt with by the Best e-Europe Practices (beep) Project. Sometimes I find it a bit difficult looking at initiatives and strategies, as they seem to say what needs to be done without providing real solutions. I suppose this is an issue for a design ethnographer, in that we need to decide how much we look at ideas and solutions, and how much of that is left to designers to work out from our findings.

Structuring Creativity

This week in DLPSI we were given the task of exploring a speculative product for Apple. We were divided into six groups, and then each group was given a new technology to base the product/service on. My group's technology was the ability to control a computer with the mind. A pretty frightening thought if you ask me.

Over the two and a half days we employed a series of methods, using various tools, to generate ideas and explore the concept further. These were,

• Edward de Bono's "6 thinking hats"
• Brainstorming and Mind Mapping
• Physical Modeling and Prototyping
• Evaluation Screening
• Stakeholder Profiling
• Ethical Profiling
• Intellectual Property

Most of the tools were useful, particularly in provoking discussions and leading into new ideas. Our group's idea "material mind", was a device which would allow people to engage, share and explore their thoughts. It involved the user wearing a wristband that could read their mind and display their thoughts via a three dimensional visualisation.  

Physical modeling

To look further into creativity and innovation I've been reading Tom Kelley's The Ten Faces of Innovation. I've just finished the first persona - The Anthropologist, which was particularly interesting to me as an Ethnographer in the making. However I felt it was relevant to this project as well, mainly the idea of adopting and switching between various roles. It is suggested that the key factor for innovation success is "when you gather several roles together and blend them into a multidisciplinary team."

Nokia Open Studios

I've been doing some more research into my essay and ideas for the third semester project. On Jan Chipchase's blog I found the presentation entitled Nokia Open Studios.

It illustrates how they engaged a community in the design process. The broader study was the exploration of "the impact of mobile connectivity within the context of global urbanisation".

The research was done in partnership with Younghee Jung, and the full paper can be found here. I think it is particularly interesting to see the emotional links people have with mobile phones, often the participants wanted their mobile to symbolise something about their personality. Also there were examples of the people presenting a need for the phone to solve problems they have or include functions they desire.

 

The video above shows Younghee Jung talking about the Nokia Open Studios project at the Lift08 conference.

Simplicity

Something else which I thought about whilst in London was the notion of simplicity. I saw the film Powers of 10 by Charles and Ray Eames in the Design Cities exhibition, and it struck me as a fairly perfect piece of information design. It manages to communicate a complex subject through an animation, which is simple, understandable and interesting.

Powers of 10 - from YouTube

I think I will take another look at some of John Maeda's work as well, he's moved from MIT to the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). I think it is important in ethnography to try and make complex information understandable, particularly when communicating research findings for instance.

This also started me thinking about the role of technology today and how it can transform how we behave, for example the introduction of the walkman shaped the way in which we listen to music. I feel today people sometimes rely on technology too much. Don't get me wrong I like to see evolution in technology, just as long as it enhances rather than complicates. 

I hope that I can explore this deeper this year, potentially through projects but also through further reading.

People in Space

Whilst in London I was attempting to observe things in relation to the group project we have been set in DE. The full brief has not yet been handed out, however we were told that it will involve people, and how they collaborate in space, particularly with big interactive systems. I tried concentrating on watching how people behaved in public spaces, and how they dealt with systems such as ATMs and ticket kiosks. It was also interesting to see people interacting with other information devices such as maps and some of the exhibits in the Science Museum. I found that in different situations behaviour became quite similar, especially when it came to queueing for things.

People interacting at the Science Museum

Often I found myself reminded of Jane Fulton Suri's book Thoughtless Acts? It illustrates how "we adapt, exploit, and react to things in our environment; things we do without really thinking." I kept finding examples in London such as an empty coffee cup left on a ledge at a tube station, someone sitting on the steps at a statue, and people keeping behind the yellow line at an ATM.

Thoughtless Acts

Jane Fulton Suri is involved in the human factors section at IDEO. Last year I read the article Informing Our Intuition, which I found related to me and my desire to understand people in order to create intuitive design. It was also interesting to read her describe the need for design research to be "integral to the innovation process, rather than as an external activity."

I actually saw another book along a similar theme in the Design Museum called Design by Use: The Everyday Metamorphosis of Things, which sadly doesn't appear to be in the library here.

London

On Thursday I travelled down to London for a field trip with the MDes/MDE group. We spent a couple of days exploring the city whilst visiting a few museums and landmarks.

Here's a photo whilst on the move in the underground.

On Friday we walked from Westminster to the Science Museum, passing many tourist attractions along the way. The Science Museum was really interesting and it was useful to observe people reacting to the space, and how they navigated the various interactive exhibits.

It all getting a bit snap happy at Westminster.

Afterwards I headed to the Design Museum with a couple of the others, where we saw the Designers in Residence exhibition. I also went in to see the Design Cities exhibition and briefly saw some of Alan Aldridge's work, which was upstairs.

I've uploaded some of the photos to flickr.