Interact with the world as both designers and strangers.
Sep 22, 2024Working in small groups, design an intervention for a public space that facilitates strangers to interact, without spoken or written language.
—
How do we observe the world through the eyes of a designer?
As a newcomer to New York, I often feel an inexplicable sense of fear while walking on the streets, doing my best to avoid eye contact with strangers and limiting interactions or conversations. Even now, I can't fully analyze where this fear stems from (it’s intertwined with various cultural, social, and individual factors), but in the early stages of this project, what I often felt was that I was the stranger in this city.
At the beginning of the ISFS project, my teammates and I strolled through Union Square, observing how people interact. What does a park represent for urban dwellers? It could be a place for travelers to rest temporarily, a spot for friends to enjoy the summer, a workplace for some, and even a home for others. For a brief moment, through this 15-minute class break observation exercise, we were pulled out of our usual framework, as if we were observing, identifying, and classifying everything happening in Union Square Park from a God’s-eye perspective.
Entering a space in this state brings a sense of security because it feels as though all events are "outside of me"; I am merely an observer within it. However, as this project progressed, I noticed that my mindset gradually changed as well.
On a weekend morning, Lupita, Yingjie, and I met up in a café, getting to know each other while exchanging ideas for the intervention. Looking back now, after the project’s completion, I find it fascinating that our relationship evolved from being strangers to becoming familiar with each other, thanks to the ISFS project.
We walked all the way from 34th St Penn Station to Washington Square Park on 9th St. The chill vibe of Washington Square Park eventually led us to choose it as the location for our intervention.
—
Washington Square Park gathers a diverse range of people. Passing through the grand arch, we encountered street performers and vendors around the fountain, seating areas and lawns surrounding the fountain, the children's playground, and the chess corner tucked in the corner of the park. Each section of the park embraces its own unique dynamics and balance.
Lupita, who loves chess and dogs, suggested that perhaps we could focus our interaction ideas on people playing chess or those walking their dogs. We then began a series of brainstorming sessions, considering possibilities from two-player games like chess or tic-tac-toe, to designing interactive installations inspired by the fountain and street performers' atmosphere, such as water gun devices or musical instruments.
We hope that through this intervention, there can be more interaction between the small groups already present in the park, bringing more playfulness to the park’s community.
—
“Be mentally prepared—the first prototype will likely not attract any interaction” — John Sharp.
Yes. Just as John said, our first prototype didn’t go as smoothly as we imagined. To test our intervention ideas, we made a tic-tac-toe out of cardboard, brought a chess set, and two water guns, then conducted a series of tests around the children's playground, chess corner, entry pathway, and the fountain area of the park.
The results of the prototype testing were mixed. Aside from some engagement at the children's playground, most areas in the park did not attract much attention.
Notes from our first prototype:
Surprising discoveries:
After receiving group feedback and discussing, we decided to keep the chess and tic-tac-toe ideas, as they showed the most potential for interaction, and we proceeded to improve them:
I was deeply impressed during the iteration phase of the ISFS project when Aya asked us in class one day to rethink the definition of a "stranger." This became a major source of inspiration for me. During our final intervention in the park, we initially just set up the game installation and sat on a distant bench to observe. What we noticed was that almost no one participated in playing; people simply passed by and took pictures with their phones. However, when we later decided to join in as players, the audience became interested in our installation, asking if they could participate, and even forming lines to wait for the next round of the game.
I was also struck during CPS when John mentioned that, in a way, we were parachuting into a space that had already reached its own balance. We had been trying to create change in Washington Square Park as "outsiders," but this experience made me reconsider how we should engage with this space. Perhaps, to the community of Washington Square Park, we were the so-called strangers, and the ISFS project, in a larger sense, was about how we, as "strangers," encountered others.
I’m grateful that after this intervention, we had many opportunities to interact and play with strangers, and in some way, we also became part of the Washington Square Park community.
