Tag: (U3) Evaluation

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Re-evaluating the Direction and Position of My Project

Over the past week, I have had space to take a step back from my work and truly look to evaluate my current direction and focus on my project due to illness stopping me from continuing on with practical work. This time has been invaluable to consider whether my current interventions and research question truly encapsulate the energy and motives of my work and what I wish to achieve.

I have included below my written workings that follow my decision-making process throughout the week and my evolution in evaluating where I am currently at and where I want to progress to. However, I then go on to summarise my thinking and consequential decision making to clarify my direction going forward as a result of this evaluation and reflection.

Progression of Reflection and Evaluation on Project Through to Evolution of Work:

Summary of Thinking and Evaluation of Project

  • Move away from simply reconnecting people to nature to consider the type of change I wish to make
    • This change initially being thought as an attitudional one but I feel this is best achieved through forming a community and community practise to create real change on a larger scale rather than small one off design events and talks ran by me – strength in numbers…
    • Strategic level change – also considering fact finding interventions to assess how people in the market react to this community

  • A community approach to build new attitudes in how nature is utilised in design, consequently results in reconnecting people to nature
    • So, my new direction in my work is much more specific and achieveable whilst providing a framework for real change. As, upon relfection I can now see my previous research question was quite diffused in its direction and purpose due to reconnecting people to nature being a broad focus.
    • Community approach also plays to my strengths of connecting with many top level stakeholders in my field and helps to connect all of the work I have been conducting in the background of my project such as meeting lost of biophilic, natural and sustainability experts
    • The group also adresses a key issue I have noticed through connecting with these experts and reaching out to differnet stakeholders. This being that the field of biophilia/natural design/ sustaibility led companies are very scattered across the internet and sites such as LinkedIn. This makes it very hard for professionals to meet each other but also for their knowledge to be combined and implemented in spaces in a new way. This knowledge can also then be shared with other industry professionals such as interior designers and architects that can be added into the community who can then implement the communtiy discussed ideas and concpets of natural design in their projects and also link with companies who can help make these ideas a reality.
      • I believe there is scope to combine my work and interests into building this professional multistakeholder community

  • The change to make is in percieving nature as a must have in design rather than a nice to have – this not only provides health and wellbeing benefits associated with intercting with nature, but can also help to meet sustianbility targets

  • Aim is to bring nature into city spaces are these are the spaces that desperately need the focus of natural design and also largely contain the people that feel most disconnected from nature (from my intervention findings and further reserach)
    • My work focusing on hospitality is still very relevant, only now there is wider scope for the application of nature in other city spaces, such as urban interior spaces and workplaces
    • Focusing on hospitality was seen as the correct way forward and entry point for my work at the begining as a sector with maxium impact. Hospitality was focused upon due to there being little applications of customer centric biophilic deisgn in the hospitality sector, hospitality having been hit so harshly by the pandemic and such design schemes and events helping to attract customers, the rise in sustainably counscious venues and the popularity of hospitality spaces leading to a vast sphere of influence among city dwellers that typcially ave minimal intercations with nature were all contributing factors.
      • However, with the progression of my work looking towards community building and practise there is a natural evolution away from limiting that community to the hospitality sector, as the communtiy can be of great benefit to multiple city spaces.
      • There is naturally multiple applications for this professional community as hospitality is so closesly linked to the consumer market; therefore, my work up until now feeds into the creation of this community space almost seamlessly.

New Direction In Summary

Research Question:

How can community practice encourage knowledge sharing on biophilic design to promote the inclusion of nature in city spaces?

Stakeholders:

Primary stakeholders – Natural design experts and professionals interested in learning about and incorporating natural design

Secondary stakeholders – Owners of internal city spaces (having the opportunity to host the ideas of the community)

Tertiary stakeholders – Users of city spaces that now incorporate nature as a result of work from the Nature In Community, thus the benefit from the work of the project.

Interventions:

  • Professional Community via LinkedIn page, featuring collaboration and conversation in the group, as well as Clubhouse talks to share knowledge and Instagram for publicity
  • Natural Events – showcase what can be achieved through natural design when thinking innoavctively and collaboratively, but also utilsie these events being held at Chelsea College of Arts to add up and coming deisgners and creative practitioners that are sustianbly focused into the professional community group

Reflection

This period of evaluation and reflection on the direction of my project has been invaluable in working to create the most effective outcomes possible. I now feel passionate that I am working to develop interventions that actively target the key aims of my work and that combine all aspects and ambitions of my work into an impactful, engaging and challenging direction.

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Working with Planted at Planted Cities Event

Last week I assisted in running Planted, which was London’s first zero-waste event. The event exhibited a multitude of ways to connect people to nature, from everything surrounding natural living in sustainable textiles, furniture and even office working pods to panel discussions giving knowledge around biophilia and sustainability; and how to implement them in your lives. The event also showcased a ‘sleeping with nature installation’ which demonstrated sustainable cabins with natural mattresses to demonstrate the benefits of sleeping among biophilic design.

The event was a huge success having over 6000 visitors across the 4 days (Thursday 23rd – Sunday 26th September). Subsequently, showcasing a huge market and commercial case for connecting people with nature and the need for sustainability in design. The growing trend and rise in consumer appetite for this movements fit seamlessly in the efforts of my project trying to connect people to nature through hospitality settings.

Personally, helping at this event offered a unique opportunity to meet some of the key experts in my stakeholder groups and even some experts I didn’t know existed prior to the event. For instance, I met people from Strobilo which is a company that measures brainwave patterns resultant from interacting with natural designs and environments. This is a company I am now looking to involve in my immerisve event at Chelsea College of Arts to measure brain wave patterns resultant form interacting with my natural event. The brain waves could demonstrate the quantifiable case for including nature in spaces. This is a big company who have ran events with the likes of Heston Blumenthal to test the impacts of the food experiences on brian waves. Due to the scope of the company I am in discussions as to whether they are able to get involved in my event as it is a lot smaller scale than their normal standard.

Other key companies I met during this event include Plant Designs which design, supply and maintain plants in work places but also in events. Plants Designs are a very exciting company and I am getting in contact regarding possible ways to work with them in the future.

There were many other exciting exhibitors at the event such as smile plastics creating furniture from recycled goods or the Yarn Collective showcasing sustainable and recycled textiles. All of the contacts I made here with the exhibitors will prove invaluable moving forward with my work and even past the scope of my masters.

The team at Planted behind the event are also very interesting and have many future plans for expansion and growth over the next year, as this was their first full-scale event due to covid restorations. I am also in talks with the Planted team on how to progress our working relationship.

Reflection

Being a part of such a large and influential event was truly an amazing experience. I was able to meet so many experts in my field that I have only been able to converse with online via places such as LinkedIn and many I had never spoken with before. It was particularly nice to meet Vanessa Champion in person, who is the editor of the Journal of Biophilic Design, which I recently wrote my article for. Vanessa was an invited panelists speaking on ‘what is biophilic deign?’.

The event was also an amazing experience in reflecting on how far I have come through the progress of my masters journey. Being at the start of my masters I was simply someone who was interested in the subjects of sustainability and biophilia, but being invited to assist in this event signified a change and growth in my position within the field. I felt that now I was an accepted part of the community with everyone striving towards the same goal, as a collective unit – to connect people to nature. It was amazing to be among so many likeminded people and for my work to be robust enough to stand up against the experts in the field to be discussed and respected. This solidified status among biophilic designers and the sustainability movement has allowed me to consider how I can continue to push my ideas further and that my work is something that is both academically significant but also desired by customers and the wider world to provide the benefits of nature through hospitality settings.

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