After presenting my early interventions (see below) I received the following feedback.
Note – to watch the video I have created please view the following blog post: https://nicoleparkes.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2021/05/08/my-early-intervention/
Feedback:
To move away from the term focus group when describing my online panel event, as this doesn’t accurately describe the action I am taking.
To invite an audience to my panel discussion, so there can be feedback and engagement from individuals that would otherwise be left out of the conversation.
To move away from the term consultancy when referring to ‘Nature. In’ as this is not the academic focus.
Reflection: Nature. In is an entity I am utilising to bring all of the stakeholders and actions of my project together in a unified outcome. So, Nature. In will be utilised in the future but in the capacity as a unifying entity of my project work.
To interrogate academic sources that I have analysed and test the rigour of the methods in the context of my project.
For instance, analysing whether the academic methods and measures I have highlighted apply to my project
To develop my own definitions for the context of my project of terms such as hospitality and the wellness resultant from biophilic schemes in hospitality businesses
I am utilising a very westernised view of hospitality in the context of my work and this positionally needs to be made apparent
Consequently, a language will be developed around my work to describe the focuses of the project
After analysing and reflecting on this feedback I incorporated it into developing my final Project 6 -What, Why, How, If proposal that I have attached below:
Therefore, my project can be summarised by the following diagram:
Reflection/ Next Steps:
Following the work I have completed over the course fo Project 6 , I am very excited to now begin to launch my work into the testing phase of my interventions. I will begin testing my video intervention to engage hospitality businesses immediately. Additionally, I will continue to develop my intervention of the online panel discussion by gathering further participants from hostility businesses and securing a platform to host the discussion. Finally, I am gear to begin building my online sharing group over the coming weeks and testing this with hospitality customers.
Furthermore, I am keen to begin developing my own definitions to utilise within the context of my research, which will best describe the intricacies of the different areas of my work. Moving forward through my project I also look to continue developing my set of language that I employ around my work. This language clearly differs when interacting with my different groups of stakeholders, specifically between engaging with biophilic experts Vs hospitality businesses and customers. I am fascinated by the possibilities of the information that can be gained from my work, especially through my intervention testing, and I look forward to developing this information into new knowledge.
Future Reading List
Abd ELghani, R., El Aidi, D.M. and Kassim, O. (2020) “Towards a methodological approach to apply Biophilic Interior Design in hospitality spaces.” Journal of Design Sciences and Applied Arts, 1(2), pp.177-191.
Alcorn, M.R. (2014) Green Restaurant in Practice: Employee Attitude and Behavior Towards Environmental Sustainability (Doctoral dissertation, Oklahoma State University).
Capaldi, C.A., Passmore, H.A., Nisbet, E.K., Zelenski, J.M. and Dopko, R.L. (2015) “Flourishing in nature: A review of the benefits of connecting with nature and its application as a wellbeing intervention.” International Journal of Wellbeing, 5(4).
Dias, B.D., (2015) “Beyond sustainability–biophilic and regenerative design in architecture.” European Scientific Journal, 11(9), pp.147-158.
Gillis, K. and Gatersleben, B. (2015) “A review of psychological literature on the health and wellbeing benefits of biophilic design.” Buildings, 5(3), pp.948-963.
Heath, O. (2021) Design a Healthy Home. Penguin Random House, London.
Kellert, S. R. (2018) Nature by design: the practise of biophilic design. Yale University Press.
Light, A. (2004) Restorative Relationships.
Park, E.O., Chae, B.K., Kwon, J. and Kim, W.H. (2020) “The effects of green restaurant attributes on customer satisfaction using the structural topic model on online customer reviews.” Sustainability, 12(7), p.2843.
Teng, Y.M. and Wu, K.S. (2019) “Sustainability development in hospitality: The effect of perceived value on customers’ green restaurant behavioural intention.” Sustainability, 11(7), p.1987.
Uhlmann, K., Lin, B.B. and Ross, H. (2018) “Who cares? The importance of emotional connections with nature to ensure food security and wellbeing in cities.” Sustainability, 10(6), p.1844.
Focus Group – Developing applications of nature with nature experts and hospitality businesses
For my second early intervention, I wish to produce an event to create change. I am in the process of organising a focus group which is taking the form of an online panel discussion, due to pandemic restrictions.
The focus group aims to bring hospitality businesses together with experts in biophilia in the aim of making change in how nature can be most effectively applied in hospitality businesses to re-connect people to the natural world.
The discussion will be relatively free forming, but a series of 3-5 prompts will be developed by myself to guide the conversation into the necessary areas.
At present the focus group is looking to take place on the 27th May, however this may change as people finalise their availability.
Confirmed Panellists:
Kristina Libby– Biophilic expert – worked on projects looking to incorporate biophilic design in workspaces to improve wellbeing and creativity
Leonardo Binetti – Biomimetics expert (mimicking natural materials, designs and systems with technology)
Simon Gardner – General manager of hospitality businesses for 25 years
Panellists Waiting to Hear Back From:
Abid Butt – Host of ‘Hospitality Talks’ group, which investigates problems facing the hospitality industry
Other individuals involved in hospitality and biophilia have been contacted, but are unable to partake at present.
In my next steps I will look to engage more individuals specifically from the hospitality industry to take part in the focus group. I have secure more biophilia experts than individuals from the hospitality industry and I wish there to be a near equal balance in representative of both halves in the focus group.
Further Future Intervention – Developing application of nature with customers
In the near future I also look to make an intervention targeted at the customers of hospitality businesses.
This intervention will involve creating a space for an ongoing process, by developing an online sharing group. The group will utilise an existing social media platform, such as Facebook, to engage as many people as possible by extorting their existing user base.
The group will provide customers of hospitality businesses that sell food and drink to share images of applications of nature or just nature itself to the group. The images will then be analysed and utilised to develop the most effective, manageable and feasible applications of nature for my project. The data supplied by customers of hospitality spaces will be analysed for frequencies of certain key elements such as light, sound, water and greenery to calculate which of these larger sectors is most important to customers. There will also be subsections that will be analysed that will go into greater depth regarding how these sectors are being approached, for instance the use of planting for the greenery section. The approaches that people like will also be closely examined to see how they could be adapted to be used in hospitality businesses that sell food and drinks.
Creating this intervention is not currently underway, as it is still in the ideas development phase. But creating this intervention will become a top priority, once the intervention of showcasing my video to hospitality businesses and organising the focus group are underway.
For my first early intervention, I wanted to target the issue I have been facing of explaining the complex subjects my project aims to tackle in a simple format. I then intend on utilising the simplified format of my ideas to engage my stakeholders of hospitality businesses.
To read further on my exploration of how I reached the formulation of this intervention, pleasure read my earlier post on developing interventions here: https://nicoleparkes.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2021/04/25/developing-an-early-intervention/
Intervention 1 – Engaging Hospitality Businesses
I have developed a video which aims to metaphorically express the importance and value that applying nature into hospitality spaces could have for hospitality business and their customers.
The video aims to break down my intrinsic aims for my project by utilising a metaphor that everyone is familiar with. This being unscented candles vs scented candles. The purpose of showcasing this video to my stakeholders is to help them engage with my work and feel they can actively contribute and get involved in what it is trying to achieve, rather than it being a project which utilises complex terms and ideas that are skewed at purely academics.
Iteration 1:
Below is the first iteration I made of my video. I have since adapted this video, as I felt the audio including technical terms such as biophilic was unapproachable for the individuals in the hospitality industry I am trying to engage. Also, I felt this initial audio didn’t explicitly showcase the point of re-connecting to nature, rather it more focused upon the wellbeing benefits of nature which isn’t the primary focus of my project.
Iteration 2:
Below you can see the updated version of my video, which I intend on showing to my stakeholders of hospitality businesses that serve food and drinks, to get them involved in the conversation around creating a re-connection to nature in their spaces.
After showing this video to my stakeholders, I plan to ask them how this made them think about the possible values of the integration of nature and re-connecting to nature in hospitality spaces. I will then ask if they now feel that the integration of nature is something they would be interested in testing out in their spaces and why? I will ask if they have any initial ideas of where they would benefit most from applications of nature to re-connect people with nature and how they think this may look?
Consequently, the point of this intervention is to start a meaningful conversation with my stakeholders, rather than overwhelming them with technical terms and ‘fluffy’ complex ideas.
Bibliography
Ideal Home (2019) “You won’t believe how much Brits are spending on candles each year! How much money are you burning? Ideal Home [Online] https://www.idealhome.co.uk/news/brits-annual-spending-candles-222764 Accessed 27/04/21
With the brief of Project 6 in mind, I started this week by considering what an early intervention for my project might look like.
Below you can see my initial spider diagram outlining what an intervention involves and ideas for possible interventions I may look to action in my project. The most notable ideas being to establish a form to represent my idea in a simple way. Also, looking at creating focus groups with hospitality businesses or biophilic experts to allow ideas to be explored in a group session as to what the most effective approaches for biophilic design application in hospitality spaces may look like. And finally, looking at a form of process in an online feedback group, possibly on Facebook, where users could post their favourite uses of biophilic forms or rate hospitality spaces they have visited according to their biophilic properties.
I noted that one of the biggest obstacle I need to overcome is around how to engage people in my idea and have them easily understand it. At present, when I have been engaging with my stakeholders I feel I have fallen into the, often unrecoverable, trap of losing my audience in the first minute or so of conversation. Upon reflection I think this is has been to do with crowding my stakeholders with unfamiliar terms and complex multifaceted ideas, rather than breaking the ideas down into their simplified component parts. Consequently, I began exploring how I could develop a simplistic, visual way to express my idea and engage my audience.
As you can see below, I then went into a brainstorming session where I dug deep into visual ways in which I could express my key concepts/ ideas. The main way I thought about doing this was through utilising a metaphor, which everyone already understands, to showcase my ideas of nature intertwining with spaces and also how adding biophilia to a space can increase customers attraction to that space and improve wellbeing.
Evolution of Ideas Resultant From Brainstorming
I initially though of roots intertwining as they grow to form a new bigger root, to represent biophilia being added in hospitality spaces and consequently creating a greater space. However, I worried that this idea was slightly misleading and it is still a bit blurry in its message. I realised from this idea that I definitely wanted to steer clear of utilising nature in this metaphorical representation, as I felt it made lines between my message too blurry, keeping the concepts very different helped to provide clarity.
Then I moved my thinking on to being around puzzles. How a puzzle can be seemingly incomplete and then the extra pieces are added into it and so a new object is formed; thus, representing adding in biophilia to create a new functioning space. However, with this representation I feared it implied that existing hospitality spaces are incomplete and functioning poorly, which isn’t an assumption I wanted to present my stakeholders with, especially not one I wanted to showcase to hospitality business owners, as this could more than likely cause offence to them.
Consequently, my ideas moved back towards the idea of nature being woven into spaces and looked at different materials which are woven. I then came across ideas which showcase newspaper being twisted and woven together to form a bag. I thought of this concept showing how the material of nature could be worked and interwoven together to form a new object/ space. However, the use of only one material here I felt lacked the moulding together of the space with nature that I wanted to try and encapsulate.
Subsequently, I moved into thinking of things that are moulded together. For instance, play dough or even in welding two materials together. Again these concepts would show the benefits of a seamless union of nature and hospitality spaces to create something new and highly beneficial. But again, I struggled to find these ideas truly captivating and encompassing of my idea as a whole.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5JOzxJFnbk
So, I moved my thinking slightly and considered items or concepts that are fully functioning as they are, as their own entity, but that when an extra element is added it can produce dramatically heightened benefits. From this line of enquiry I first though of cakes (I must admit I was hungry) and how a cake without flour is still a tasty desert. But, when you add flour it becomes fluffy and irresistible. However, here I feared the message was that something had in fact been taken out of a standard cake (being flourless) rather than something added to a standard cake. And then came my eureka moment. Candles.
A standard unscented candle is what most people would consider as a ‘normal’ candle. This is a fully functioning candle that attracts customers as they are purchased in their millions globally (around 3 billion USD of candles sold 2018). However, scented candles are preferred by most consumers to unscented candles (Ideal Home 2019); thus, they attract even greater custom and they improve wellbeing due to their differing scents having a variety of benefits including reducing stress, helping with sleep and even concentration. Therefore, adding scent which is intrinsically woven into a candle, increases profits and improves wellbeing. Just as, intrinsically incorporating biophilic design into hospitality spaces aims to improve wellbeing and attract greater customers to the spaces, increasing profits of the hospitality businesses.
Formulating a video to showcase this idea of unscented vs scented candles demonstrating the concept of intrinsically adding biophilic design into hospitality spaces to create benefits to wellbeing and the businesses themselves, will be my tasks for the upcoming week.
Remaining Uncertainties in my Project
I am aware that current uncertainties still remain in my project, which include: what type of hospitality I will focus upon making my change in, as well as how I will measure social interactions, improved wellbeing and increased customers/ profits. I am still working on reducing the uncertainties in these areas.
In regard to what type of hospitality I will focus upon, I have been exploring secondary data around defining hospitality and which sectors may benefit more from the application of Biophilia. I also look to talk with more hospitality business as stakeholders to help further narrow in on the exact area of hospitality to focus upon.
However, regarding defining my measurements, I have had discussions with stakeholders that are experts in biophilic design applications and creating improvements to wellbeing through this application, as to how best measure social interactions and wellbeing. I will be developing a blog post on this further in the coming days. However, I need delve further into how to measure customers brought to the spaces as a result of the biophilic design application and/ or increased profits due to Biophilia.
Research question at the start of the project: How can nature or natural structures evoke social interaction in spaces where food is consumed?
Upon starting this project, I plunged myself into in-depth research around the current uses of nature in spaces where food is consumed, as well as the current applications of nature generally in the built environment. From this initial research examined the term biophilic design, which looks to connect people with the natural world. I soon realised the concept of biophilia encapsulates the heart of what I am trying to achieve with my project; thus, the exploration of this field will form a key component of my project. Additionally, I discovered the term of biomimetics which involves utilising the natural world to inspire the development of new materials and systems. Again, biomimetics is a principle that embodies the change I want to see and so forms another key pillar of my project.
Other topics explored during this in-depth research include examining the most sustainable restaurants in the world including Azurmendi, Spain and Schloss Schauenstein, Switzerland. I studied what they are currently doing to incorporate nature and noted that the majority of their sustainability focus is on the food and energy consumption; with the integration of nature into the spaces being seemingly secondary. Therefore, displaying there is scope to add nature intrinsically even into the most sustainable hospitality spaces in the world.
My journey then moved into an examination of the strong link between interactions with nature and improved personal wellbeing. This link is proven by a multitude of academic papers, news articles and websites that I have unpacked in earlier blog posts; as well as being later confirmed in my stakeholder engagement with industry experts. Furthermore, I studied how biophilic design drives social interaction. Several studies highlighted that social interactions boost personal wellbeing due to their encouragement of the release of oxytocin which creates anti-stress effects. Socialising is also linked to longer life expectancy, reduced depression and anxiety, which all massively benefit wellbeing.
As a result of uncovering this research linking nature and wellbeing, I decided to conduct a personal intervention. Due to being home in Sheffield I had the fortunate position of having access to my garden and my mum is a keen gardener which I am eager to learn the different properties of plants from. Therefore, I ensured I went out to the garden for at least 2 hours a day, over the course of a week, with my mum. From this time, I saw for myself the positive effects spending increased time with nature can have on personal wellbeing. I experienced feeling relaxed whilst increasing with the garden and even afterwards and I thoroughly enjoyed learning the different qualities and studying the forms of a variety of plants which I could utilise in my biophilic designs. Upon reflection I missed a crucial opportunity during this time to document the research process, as I didn’t video my time spent in the garden. However, I will ensure not to make this mistake again.
To outline my arena for change, I unpacked the area outlined in my initial research question, of spaces in which food is consumed. From this I decided to narrow my focus to hospitality spaces. This decision was made due to my research showcasing that the majority of biophilic design schemes are currently focused upon workspaces to improve wellbeing and productivity; thus, leaving a gap in the market for the application of biophilia in the hospitality industry. I also have a strong interest and passion in hospitality, as I love visiting and discovering new hospitality spaces alongside cooking; therefore, it is an area I am passionate about exploring and maximising its potential. Finally, the hospitality industry has been hit incredibly hard by the coronavirus pandemic and so any schemes that could draw new customers to the spaces and boost their revenue, such as applications of nature that improve customers wellbeing, could be very beneficial. However, I am aware the cost of said schemes will have to be minimal for most businesses as they have limited funds after being closed for so long with the pandemic restrictions.
Research question evolution:How can nature or natural structures be utilised to improve wellbeing through evoking social interaction in hospitality spaces?
In relation to stakeholders, I initially identified 2 key stakeholder groups, the first being experts and the second being consumers. As my project has progressed, I have moved onto defining these categories even further to be hospitality businesses, hospitality customers and industry experts; with these stakeholders being encompassed by my possible output of a biophilic and biomimetic consultancy. Gaining stakeholder feedback is something I have struggled with on this project, and upon reflection I feel this is largely to do with the timings in which I reached out to the majority of my stakeholders. I placed my full focus upon stakeholder engagement during the 2 weeks of Easter holiday, which coincided with the Easter bank holiday, a time which many in the UK have off work. I feel this has limited the number of responses I have managed to collate for the presentation of project 5, as I over the past few days I have started to receive some more responses beginning initial conversations with stakeholders. Consequently, stakeholder engagement is something I really need to extensively work on over the coming weeks.
Finally, the change I want to see has been created from all of the research previously outlined. The statement below summaries the change I want to see and the following diagram helps to demonstrate how my chosen area, stakeholders and question interact to create the change I want to make.
Research question evolution: How can nature be intrinsically incorporated into hospitality spaces to evoke social interaction and improve personal wellbeing?
My Personal Reflection on Project 5
For the first time I really started to feel absorbed by the feeling of being lost that has been mentioned during the course so far, whilst working on Project 5. This was scary to me as it first began and if I am honest that feeling of being a bit lost is still with me even at the end of Project 5. Feeling lost remains scary, but I am taking it to mean that I am on track to uncovering something in the unknown which should lead to more profound change. There are lots of ideas and avenues for discovery that I have unearthed and found very interesting, but I feel lost in how to decipher which to pursue and so I feel I have fallen into the trap of looking at all of them slightly rather than a few in depth. This predicament is mostly clearly displayed in the vagueness of terms in my research question of ‘hospitality’ and ‘wellbeing’ which need to be clearly defined, forming the clear next steps for my project.
I have also struggled with contacting certain stakeholders. Upon reflection I feel I may be gaining limited responses due to possibly having over-faced people by throwing too much information at them at once, as I wanted them to see all the different aspects I am interested in studying. Consequently, I will try and provide clearer, condensed ideas when making contact with stakeholders to try and build a meaningful relationship with them at first. Consequently, I can later ask them about the multitude of angles I wish to investigate to ensure I am aiming for the most suitable and effective change.
I have also really been focusing on trying to bring my whole self to the project which is a new thing to me. Prior to undertaking this Masters, I have always had quite a clear distinction between my academic work and my personal interests. So, blending the two together has been a bit of a mental obstacle for me. However, I feel as though I am getting there, so that I will hopefully be able to create a project that I will be able to fully throw myself into and creating lasting change with.
Project 5 – Bibliography
Anme, T., Watanabe, T., Tokutake, K., Tomisaki, E., Mochizuki, H., Tanaka, E., Wu, B., Shinohara, R., Sugisawa, Y., Tada, C. and Matsui, T. (2012) “Behaviour Changes in Older Persons Caused by Using Wood Products in Assisted Living.” Public Health Research, 2(4), pp.106-109.
Salingaros, N. A. (2015) “Biophilia & Healing Environments: Healthy Principles For Designing the Built Environment.” New York: Terrapin Bright Green LLC.
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:
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
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
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:
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?
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?
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)
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?
Look to learning how to use CAD
To be able to create 3D models of designs for structures
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
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.
