Space and Place

Whilst browsing through the Space and Place listserv archives, which I finally managed to sign up to (to some degree anyway), I found the Partners for Urban Knowledge, Action & Research, or Pukar. 

Most engaging was the Gender and Space project, which has an interesting Ethnographic study conducted in railway stations. They also present how their research led to public interventions, specifically the Railway Lighting Campaign.

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.

Everyware

I have been doing a bit of research into ubiquitous technology, and came across a series of papers on the AIGA website.

The first paper I looked at was Mobile Computing in High-End Retail. It shows how an ethnographic study into how managers guided clients through the experience of buying their fashion related products led into the design of a prototype and set of requirements. It was interesting to see how quickly the process was completed, and how valuable they found involving users in the process.

The second paper I looked at was Mobile Essentials: Field Study and Concepting, which looked at the study of"what people consider to be mobile essentials, how those mobile essentials are carried and problems typically encountered." I liked how they looked at the context and situations/places these Mobile Essentials (MEs) were being used in, rather than concentrating on the objects themselves i.e. they looked at the why and how as well as the what. I laughed at the paragraph describing how people remembered their MEs, as I am often seen doing the Phone, Keys, Wallet pat down before I leave the house.

The paper Nokia Sensor: From Research to Product goes into much more detail, providing some insight to the process and decisions made. The product itself can be seen here. Personally I'm not sure on the product's success, however I found an interesting comment here stating that it seemed "like yet another mobile product looking for an application". So I suppose that even when the design is user-centred, and done with all good intentions, the end result can still be ineffective.