NCAD Year 1 - Social Spaces project
Brief
For this paired project we were tasked to choose a place local to NCAD campus and come up with an object that would encourage social interactions due to the lack thereof post-covid. We chose to examine St. Audeons park in Dublin and see what we could add to the space to aid socialisation.
Research
We visited the park to take photographs of the park and get familiar with the area and who visits it and how it's normally used. We then went back twice more to observe and interview people who were in the park - once around 10am and interviewed a group of men from the Dublin City Council working in the park as well as a group of primary school children and their teachers with other people just walking through the park either alone or with their dogs. Later on in the afternoon (around 2pm) we revisited the park and observed a young family as well as some adults sitting alone scattered around the park listening to music or on their phone.
In doing so we found that everyone noticed the same problem and named regular anti-social behaviour as the reason for the lack of time spent here by some locals even though it's well kept and offers lots of green space.
Concepts
Given the increase of antisocial behaviour we wanted to develop a more child friendly environment to increase footfall and therefore decrease or discourage anti social activities while also making the green space more colourful and integrate the safe and welcoming community. Some concepts included a community art board featuring art from NCAD students, a large dome where people could draw and weave their works on, a communal garden to grow fruit/veg, a blackboard bin to encourage sketching on or colourful picnic spaces.
Testing
We were quite focused on the communal art space idea however when we left out drawing surfaces in the park we found that people didn't actually interact with it. From there we looked at a more hands on, creative, simple interaction and tested out paper airplane making stations to see if that would gather attention.
It was surprisingly very successful and not only did children enjoy playing with each other throwing around the ready made planes and even the cardboard structure! But many adults and tourists stopped to interact with the plane station and it seemed to bring joy.
Making final piece
Following the success of this we developed a higher quality product out of MDF and decorated with spray paint and chalkboard surfaces - one being a box full of pre-made model airplanes and the other being a standing target and placed them in the park for people to enjoy!
Outcome
To my surprise, we observed more adults enjoying playing with the model more so than children however it allowed and encouraged all park visitors to engage with their imagination and have fun. As a bonus it also discouraged harmful, antisocial behaviour in the park due to a higher influx of visitors and other people trying to enjoy the peace in the park. I learned a lot from this very hands on project and was delighted with the outcome!
You can watch the progress video on YouTube!