In this project, I built a redesigned prototype of a local park as part of a design proposal. The proposal also includes co-production with local charities and businesses to help influence the park’s activities.
Design purpose
The primary purpose was to provide a design solution to crime in my local community. Because of this, I decided to go with a more open problem-framing approach by not only redesigning a local park to have more activities but also providing a service through which users and charities can help influence the activities in the park via voluntary work programmes. The rationale behind this is that to make sure that the activities themselves are effective, establishing co-production with charities and potential users would help the activities themselves be more easily tailored to the needs and expectations of users within the local community
Advantages and disadvantages
Providing a service through which users can organise the activities can help the design proposal be more effective and have a longer lifespan. This is because it can change based on user demand and expectations.
The disadvantage is that not only is it an expensive design proposal due to the scale of the redesign, but also social expectations regarding users and their relationships with their local communities could limit the effectiveness of the design.
Design process
When working on the project, I started by doing online and outdoor research about recent crimes in my local community. This included submitting a Freedom of Information request to Police Scotland, where I enquired about the number of assault crimes committed in my local community over the past 7 months. Visiting the areas in person allowed me to take notes on various aspects, such as how many local businesses were near the crime scene, what areas could have provided protection, and how isolated the area was. This was done to get an idea of the type of community that the main users would potentially be from. I then hosted two creative sessions, generating various design ideas and developing some of them through constructive criticism. Once the final idea had been I developed the first physical prototype model.
Conclusion
To design an effective design proposal that is supposed to provide a solution on a broader scale, it is essential for the designer to allow enough time to develop a design based on an open-ended problem-framing approach.