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My Plan Moving Forward into Project 5

Looking at the next steps of investigating my research question of:

“How can nature or natural structures evoke social interactions in spaces where food is consumed?”

I have created a plan of action as to what needs to be addressed over the coming weeks in order to address the brief of Project 5.

Area/ Context of My Project: 

  1. What is the area/ context of my research?
    • Research current natural sustainable structures/ buildings/ items out there surrounding the consumption of food
      • Utilise appealing designs or videos to make data digestible and audience friendly 
      • Record research visually as well as the written word to keep it engaging 
      • Make data comparative and proportional
  2. How will I research it?
    • Academic papers
      • Biophilic design 
      • Nature in building
      • Social interactions around food
      • Social interactions in differing spaces
      • Temporary structures with nature
    • Websites
      • Assess how restaurant and other spaces in which food is consumed utilise nature at present and how this impacts social interactions – (try and observe this in person once spaces are open after restrictions are lifted)
    • News Articles
  3. Outline what change is possible in the area 
    • Create a new natural sustainable product to evoke social interaction?
    • Changes in behaviour – how people utilise spaces around food
    • Changes in approach to sustainable structure – nature bound intrinsically into the built structure

Stakeholders:

  1. Who are the people and organisations involved in this field? 
    • How would they be affected by the changes I propose – for or against? 
    • What power do they hold in the situation/ context? 
  2. Reach out to experts– get their opinions on the issues that a natural structure could alleviate and also what materials and forms might work – Temporary, semi- permeant or permeant structure?
    • Industrial designers
    • Structural engineers
    • Sustainable/ natural designers
    • Materials experts
    • Product developers
    • Hospitality spaces – events companies?
  3. Reach out to consumers – gather opinions on what kind of structures they would utilise and how nature could be utilised to evoke social interactions
    • Could the structure be utilised for domestic use as well as commercial? – eg: in people’s gardens or homes? or is it social – found in parks etc?
    • What features of existing structures do they like/ dislike – how can they be addressed and improved?

The Change I Look to Make:  (move outside of my comfort zone)

  1. What is the change I wish to make and why is it necessary?
    • Changes in social behaviours and attitudes towards sustainability and nature by the utilisation of a product?
    • To what extent would a product be viable for a business model – would the structure work?
  2. Look to learning how to use CAD 
    • To be able to create 3D models of designs for structures
  3. Possible interventions:
    • Test models with stakeholders
      • Can be physical models, but prepare for judgement over the quality of the model impacting people’s opinions of the proposed design – high quality model will suggest a high-quality finished design, which you will have to be able to deliver, or a low quality/ unfinished model may reflect poorly on the design
      • Focus on demonstrating the idea – not so much the aesthetics, as to test the idea first and then visuals can be adapted later, by collaboration with stakeholders
    • Invitation to create with nature
      • Provide people with natural materials/ apparatus and ask them to form what social interaction means to them out of the apparatus – utilise the outcomes to realise change in how nature can be utilised to form structures, even as small models
      • How do people respond to nature? how does nature aid their wellbeing?
    • Simulate how changes in configurations of spaces in which food is consumed alter interactions in that space?

Remember– Keep bibliography of source materials used or that I plan on using as I go

Having outlined all of the work I need to address during Project 5, I have developed a week by week guide as to the tasks I aim to complete over the course of this project; which you can see below.

Week of Project 5 Tasks to Complete
Week 1 (W.C. 8/3/21)
Getting the ball rolling
Make blog – add project findings so far to blog

Formulate plan of action 

Find some useful sources to read/ people and organisations to contact

(ALL WEEK 1 TASKS ARE NOW COMPLETED)
Week 2 (W.C. 15/3/21)
Begin in-depth research 		Read and record data from academic papers, news articles and websites to utilise for in-depth study 

Outline what is already out there and what change is possible in the area

Identify all possible stakeholders 

Contact at least 15 expert stakeholders/ stakeholder groups and 10 consumers as stakeholders

Week 3 (W.C. 22/3/21)
Continue in-depth research		Follow up any leads that have come out of week 2 research and peruse them to gain greater depth of knowledge and understanding 

Build greater relationships with stakeholder and test ideas with them

Continue researching via academic sources, websites and news articles as well as contacting new stakeholders to further knowledge
Week 4 (W.C. 29/3/21)
Finalise outcome		Consolidate research and how to then take the findings further 

Possibly begin to outline what possible interventions could be developed next
Week 5 (W.C. 5/4/21)
Holiday week		Polish off any outstanding items ready to present on the 12th April but try to have some time off on this week

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Question Evolution

After the feedback from the presentation of my question and interventions, it was suggested that moving away from the wording of ‘restaurant’ may assist my project as to make it more open.

Consequently, my current working question is:

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Developing My Question and Interventions

Creating my box of uncertainties really got the ball rolling to then push my thoughts around sustainable building with nature to their limits and really explore a space that felt almost uncomfortable and scary to try and develop the most pressing and effective question possible.

At first I began quite fixed and limiting in my thinking looking at especially the coral from my box of uncertainty. I examined how possibly the material of dead coral resultant of the mass coral bleaching crises could be repurposed as a material for construction. I was also almost subconsciously limiting myself when thinking about building to mean a literal building. So, after acknowledging these thresholds I had placed upon myself I began trying to open up my thinking in including nature in its entirety and to look at structures rather than strictly building. Opening up my thinking in this way was always useful to apply more accurately to my skill sets, as I am not a materials expert nor an architect.

I then took the ideas developed through this initial thinking to my tutor David. David helped me to visualise the links between my different iterations of my questions, as he advised to go back and examine what is the key aim that is present in all of my questions, to help myself focus upon one of the aspect that is most important to me. This reflection upon my questions really helped me to focus my thinking, as previously I was trying to tackle so many things, but not accurately addressing any of them. Therefore, I established my key aim to be intrinsically linking nature with the built environment in structures, with a focus upon improving wellbeing through these structures. David also placed emphasis on defining why I wanted to study this question/ topic and why it was important to me. This approach led to to thinking about brining the entirety of myself to the project, not simply my academic ambitions, and so I began to list my passions involving health/ fitness and food/ cooking. Subsequently, I utilised my passion for food to define the area of study in which to intrinsically link nature into the built environment, whilst aiming to improve wellbeing. Thus, my question was born:

“How can nature or natural structures be utilised to evoke social interaction in restaurants?”

After defining my question, I went on to establish two mini interventions, each one aimed at a key part of the question. Part 1 being – the use of nature in natural, sustainable structures and Part 2 being – the evoking of social interactions in the spaces of restaurants. So, the combination of both of these elements aims to create natural, sustainable solutions which combat the climate crisis, but also improve wellbeing through promoting social interactions.

My first intervention involved assessing perceptions towards the needs for sustainable building and nature’s role in this. Participants were provided with a poster demonstrating the impacts of traditional construction methods on the ocean and asked to annotate their thoughts around the poster going off three provided prompts.

The second intervention aimed to action changes towards people’s habits of social interactions around food. Participants were asked to record their feelings towards social interactions around meals, specifically dinner, as this is the most prominent meal of the day for most people. Dinner in the home was utilised to imitate interactions in restaurants due to current covid-19 restrictions meaning restaurants are closed.

I have included my full journal for this project below which demonstrates all of my thinking and decision making in developing both my question and my interventions, as well as showcasing the outcomes of my interventions.

Below exhibits the inner workings of how I developed my intervention addressing perceptions towards the need for sustainable building and nature’s role in this. The poster utilised in the intervention was developed utilising a multitude of research from academic papers make sure that all figure utilised are accurate and precise.

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The Brick and The Coral – My Box of Uncertainties

For my box of uncertainties project, I began by examining in depth the topic of sustainable building, which is a topic I am very interested in investigating further from my undergraduate studies. Exploration of sustainable building led to big uncertainties being raised, such as what is the future of the traditional brick in construction? As well as questions around the possible role that nature can play in sustainable building developments. The examination of the possibilities nature holds led to my study into coral and the current coral bleaching crisis; investigating how the crisis could be overcome through sustainable building or even if coral could be utilised as a material or design feature in building.

Consequently, my chosen items to place into my box of uncertainties was a BRICK and a piece of CORAL.

Key Points From the Project:

Discovering the work of Neri Oxman really revolutionised my thinking on this project, to thinking of how structures can be grown with nature rather than developed and nature added later to the infrastructure. Prior to discovering how Neri and her team at the MIT Media lab are developing ways to utilise nature’s processes to build, I was really struggling to form ideas as to how the current model of ‘green’ building could be challenged/ changed. I knew that I wanted to make nature more intrinsic to the fabric of buildings, but I wasn’t sure of any possible ways that this could be achieved. But, Neri’s work really opened my eyes and got me excited to explore ways to achieve this harmonious blend of nature and building.

Below I have included my reflective journal for this project which documents all of the decisions I made and why I made them, to result in my outcome.