Lecture and reading analysis
Designers engage with a community to identify challenges or issues that need resolving. When doing this its important to explore more marginalised voices and groups and directly involve people in the decision making.
Hefin Jones works closely with people and the community in his work. His project Cosmic Colliery looked at how the history of Wales could be reframed. He wanted to reimagine the abandoned coal mining industry using the opinions and ideas of local people.
He raises an interesting idea that if you start off at a ridiculous and unattainable idea (such as turning the old mines into an astronaut training centre) then anything else below that idea starts to seem possible. I think using this idea to stop limitations on peoples imagination could allow really interesting and big ideas to come to light.
For this project to work, Hefin had to spend a lot of time in the area and build relationships with the community. He spoke informally to local people and found it very important to give in to the situations and not impose anything on them himself. This allowed things to progress naturally and be very much led by the community itself. He simply facilitated conversation about issues and changes they wanted to see. I think not imposing your own ideas or preconceptions onto something is difficult, but if you have the time and patience to do that the outcome will be very community focused.
Hefin made sure to listen and be responsive to the place and the people within in, allowing these interactions to shape the work. He also makes the point that you should be honest about what you are personally interested in and investigate that, and to stick to working in a natural way, not forcing yourself into uncomfortable situations.
I think the ideas of slowing coming to know a community, letting their ideas take the forefront and lead your design process would be a brilliant way to create something that is really user and community focused. However, it is a long process that would often be hard to do with common time and financial pressures.
In ‘Design Anthropology: Object Cultures in Transition’ I came across this passage:
“The World Wildlife Foundation’s Tom Compton, in a 2008 report entitled Weathercocks and Signposts, eloquently critiqued the predominant “marketing approach” to “motivating environmentally-friendly behaviour change” by arguing that “any adequate strategy for tackling environmental challenges will demand engagement with the values that underlie the decisions we make.” Compton makes a nice distinction between the figure of “weathercocks”, or indicators of where or how things are going in the present (e.g., percentage of households recycling), with the figure of the “signpost,” which tells us where to go, and often, how far it is or how difficult it is going to be to get there. Giving us guidance on getting somewhere is more important, and more difficult, than telling us how we are doing now. In the basic notion of design as the work of planning, how to get to ‘next’ from ‘here,’ we believe that values, as much as ‘additional value’ or ‘experience,’ should be the forward anchor of that arc.” (Bezaitis and Robinson 2017)
I am interested in this idea that to create environmentally friendly change, you need to ensure people understand the reason behind the changes and show them how to do it and how their efforts are helping.
Designers use social observation as a way to inform and inspire the development of new ideas. However, it is often done quickly and simply, with small groups that don’t create proper results – essentially in a way that anthropologist would not consider to be ethnography. (Hunt 2017)
“A designer must project forward into a potential future to launch an artifact that will, if all goes right, transform a near present and rewrite our future. Whereas an ethnographer works in ever-greater detail to ensure that she has got the present ‘just right,’ the designer uses the present—and uses it often imperfectly—as a provisional leaping-off point for reimagining possible futures.”
(Hunt 2017)
I think this could be seen as an issue and a positive, where as quick and simple ethnographic research does not allow for the whole picture to be shown and a deep understanding, it can still highlight issues and create a brilliant starting point for society improving design. When design projects don’t have the time or money to engage in deep and careful ethnographic research, while a drawback in many ways, I still feel like a small bit of time spend with communities is important and benefits the design and can allow big changes to be created quickly and with momentum.
“While large scale campaigns around profound issues like race inequality or deforestation may appear to face insurmountable barriers, locally targeted campaigns can see immediate engagement and impact”
(Yates and Price 2015)
The book ‘Communication Design’ showed some great examples of community focused design for change. The Walk (yourCity) campaign makes cities easier to navigate on foot by creating simple, cheap signs that tell people how far it is to walk somewhere.
The ‘Power of Cute’ aimed to reduce the crime after the London riots by painting faces of local babies on the shutters of shops and ‘Immortal Fans’ increased the amount of people donating organs in Brazil by linking the idea with a football club specific donor card, which was incredibly successful.
These ideas show the inspiring change small local projects can make to big issues. (Yates and Price 2015)
Workshop Challenge
From my experience of living in Bristol there are many potential issues to investigate.
To begin discovering issues I walked around the city, noting down things that came to mind and photographing obvious issues around me. The city struggles with homelessness, crime, poverty, litter and disused buildings, as well as more universal and unseen problems such as mental health issues, loneliness and sustainability issues.
I think the sustainability and environmental issues within Bristol are interesting to explore further as in general Bristol prides itself on being a ‘green’ city, but still has many issues to overcome. I started some research into the environmental issues in Bristol and found some brilliant community centred progress that has been made. Community groups in Bristol have been behind the permission to build England’s largest onshore want turbine, funding for a hydropower scheme powered by the river Avon, and a project that could see solar panels spread across the city’s roofs. (Dowson 2021)
This change has been created by the people that live in the community which I think is a really inspiring and powerful thing. Because of this, I felt inspired to find out what was going on with climate issues within the community in my area of Bristol. I managed to join a community discussion group with Eastside Community Trust about their own Climate action project that was designed to represent the views of people living in the area, asking them what change they wanted to see and working from their upwards. The group was diverse in ethnic and economic background, but limited to people who are already motivated to make positive environmental changes.
What came to light from this meeting was that the poorest community, while often having a low impact on the environment themselves where the most at risk from adverse affects now and in the future. People wanted improvement in how we move around the city, with worries about air pollution being high up on the list, as well as building back better after Covid, by engaging residents to help keep cleaner air and reduce the carbon they use. Many other issues were raised from the food we eat to how to prepare the city to be resilient to future climate induced changes and issues.
Walking around the city, I became aware of some graffiti that was repeated again and again, showing some lungs/ trees and the words ‘Our Air, Our City’. This prompted me to research this more and I found that artist Luke Jerram created a stencil of this design for anti-pollution campaign organisation Our Air, Our City that he then ‘reverse grafittied’ onto surfaces around Bristol, by cleaning the dirt of to reveal the design.(Pipe 2021)
This bold and striking message seems to give a bit of visibility to an invisible problem.
From researching into the organisation Our Air Our City I found some shocking statistics about the state of Bristol’s air.
Air pollution is high in Bristol – “Air pollution is gases and particles in the air that impacts our health. In Bristol the worst sources are nitrogen dioxide, which mostly comes from traffic, and Particulate Matter, which comes from sources such as wood burning stoves.
Bristol’s air pollution levels are illegal and have been for over twenty years. Our dirty air damages the health of our children, communities, economy and planet, and has a disproportionate impact on many communities.” (Our Air Our City 2020)
- 300 extra deaths per year are attributed to toxic air in Bristol.
Some of the conditions it contributes to are:
- Asthma, impaired lung function, premature heart disease and cancer.
- Low birth weight and premature birth and stunted lung growth.
- Traffic pollution is often worse in lower socio-economic areas. This is despite the fact that these communities are the least responsible for causing this pollution.
- Nitrous oxide is 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide and depletes the ozone layer.
- It is also linked to acid rain which damages plants, trees and buildings.
- Particulate matter from diesel engines darkens polar ice, contributing to global warming.
- Dirty air is dramatically changing the natural environment. It affects plant and tree growth, and contributes to biodiversity loss.
(Our Air Our City 2020)
“The Air Pollution in Bristol is the equivalent of smoking 1.5 cigarettes a day”
From my research it seems like Air pollution is a big issues in Bristol that worries a lot of people, and silently affects the health and life expectancy of everyone.
The effects on the health of children in Bristol, who will be exposed to these levels since birth is the most worrying.
The trouble with air pollution is that you can’t see the problem, and you can’t see how much you are contributing to it. People don’t know the affects of their actions or how to improve the air quality.
Bristol tracks its air quality, and during covid lockdown, the air dipped down into safe levels for the first time in a long time. There were significantly less cars on the roads and chunks of the city centre were closed to cars to allow social distancing to happen on pavements. However, these levels has once again started to rise back up to dangerous levels. (Edwards 2020) It seems that getting people in Bristol to drive less and walk and cycle more is the key to reducing air pollution.
As a cyclist myself, I can think of a lot of issues with the cycle network within Bristol and reasons why people wouldn’t want to cycle within the city.
“Bristol is one of the most dangerous cities to cycle in, with nearly twice the average number of accidents recorded in 2017”
(Stephenson 2019)
The road surfaces are often very poor, their are not enough bike lanes, and where bike lanes exist many are filled with pedestrians and parked cars. Bike theft is also a big issue within the city. The roads are busy and congested, forcing cyclists to cycle through thick car fumes and constantly be at the mercy of aggressive drivers or drives that struggle to safely overtake.
I took some photos of a bike lane/footpath near me. It is a very well used route as it allows pedestrians and cyclists to navigate under the M32. While this is a reasonably successful bike path, the signs and instructions are confusing, leading to pedestrians and cyclists not being sure where they should be.
There are also very small and unclear sections of dropped curb so allow cyclists onto the path. If you miss this tiny section you have to navigate getting up onto the curb. There are marking around here however which may indicate they are planning to re paint the cycle lane?
Interviews with local people
I interviewed a selection of people who live in Bristol about the issues they face when cycling around the city, or what puts them off cycling in general. The issues that came up were simular to my personal experience.
“Not always safe to lock bikes in Bristol”
“Poor road surface conditions within the city”
“Traffic, some cycle routes aren’t very good Or well maintained, hills, poorly lit cycle routes”
“The cycle lanes around the centre are very dangerous. Also motorist do try to spook cyclist for fun, some have even thrown cigarette butts at me. Also I’m so worried about my bike getting stolen then sometime I just don’t bother.”
“a lot of the lanes are overrun with pedestrians, trees, obstacles and the like. The traffic is terrible especially around rush hour and seems to be very congested very quickly – leading to angry impatient drivers who become dangerous and scary very quickly. A lot of the motorists don’t seem to understand cycling and drive very close, it’s rare I get to work without one person trying to cut me up, do a terrible overtake or panic and nearly crash into me every time.”
Full list of questions and responses here
Better cycle lanes, more respect from drivers and safer places to lock up bikes seemed like the biggest issues. From my research it also seems a cultural shift is needed, as well as education on the importance of driving less. (Edwards and Cameron 2021)
There are some good initiatives already in place to help combat these issues in certain areas, for example Mud Dock provides safe and secure bike storage as well as showers to encourage people to commute into work by bike. These are expensive and limited however. https://www.mud-dock.co.uk/cycleworks/bike-shed-showers/
There are also secure bike parks at the train station with CCTV, which makes the prospect of leaving your bike on its on much less worrying. https://www.cyclepods.co.uk/new-cycle-park-at-bristol-temple-meads/
Project Brief
Breathing the air in Bristol is the same as smoking 1.5 cigarettes a day and kills 300 people a year. With levels of air pollution in Bristol at a dangerous level, this is a silent and invisible health emergency that is also adding to negative impacts on the climate. The biggest cause of air pollution in Bristol is from traffic, so the issue I want to try and solve is getting more people to walk or cycle instead of driving around the city.
From interviewing Bristol residents it seems that the biggest issues stopping people from cycling more are poor or infrequent cycle paths, lack of respect from drivers creating dangerous cycling conditions and a lack of safe places to lock bikes in a city with a high crime rate.
In my project I want to highlight the importance of choosing to cycle over driving, educate residents on the affect they have on air pollution and try to minimise the barriers that stop people from walking and cycling around the city.
Visual Summary
I designed a simple and clear summary of my findings, choosing colours that represented the air pollution alongside the green efforts of combating it. I plan to video some of the issues that come with cycling around Bristol, showing congested roads, cars driving too close to cyclists and the prolific potholes. I will then edit these slide in within the video to show a more interactive and engaging brief.
Final
I collected video footage of some busy roads near me and combined them with my slides and a VoiceOver to clearing show the problem.
Reflection
When trying to discover issues within a community, the first place you have to look is within that community itself. Speaking to and listening to the individuals that live in an area is the best way to find out what changes need to be made, and to ensure you make the changes in the right way.
In Bristol, as with most cities, there are a lot of issues to choose from. I used observation of my local area, along with research of local news and community groups as a starting point, before joining a community action meeting where I was able to hear the views of a wide variety of people from different cultural and economic backgrounds. I took the ideas raised here and embarked on my own interviews with local residents. All the techniques I used to find the root cause of issues were very revealing and definitely valuable for my design process. However, due to limitations in time, money and covid lockdown I wasn’t able to launch into any of them with the depth that they truly need. Ideally I would want to run focus groups, reach out to different groups within Bristol and get a wide view of the issues surrounding air pollution and the inaccessibility of cycling within the city, before creating personas from this. Doing this would enable me to ensure I was creating a design solution that was inclusive and relevant.
During my research I also came across many brilliant examples of design for social change. Many focused on a small problem or geographical area where their design could make a real and tangible difference to peoples lives. I think this is a great starting point for a project that, if successful, could then be rolled out on a more universal scale, adapting to each area as it went.
Reference list
BEZAITIS, Maria and Rick E. ROBINSON. 2017. “Valuable to Values: How ‘User Research’ Ought to Change.” In Design Anthropology: Object Cultures in Transition. London: Bloomsbury.
DOWSON, Nick. 2021. “Can Community Energy Projects Help Bristol Get to Net Zero?” Cable, 15 Mar [online]. Available at: https://thebristolcable.org/2021/03/can-community-energy-projects-help-bristol-get-to-net-zero/ [accessed 22 Mar 2021].
EDWARDS, Matty. 2020. “Air Pollution close to Pre-Lockdown Levels as Battle for Solutions Hots Up.” The Bristol Cable [online]. Available at: https://thebristolcable.org/2020/10/air-pollution-close-to-pre-lockdown-levels-in-bristol-city-centre-as-battle-for-solutions-hots-up/ [accessed 16 Apr 2021].
EDWARDS, Matty and Amanda CAMERON. 2021. “Bristol Will Be Charging Drivers to Tackle Air Pollution, but Other Changes Are on the Way Too.” The Bristol Cable [online]. Available at: https://thebristolcable.org/2021/01/bristol-air-pollution-clean-air-zone-charge-drivers-transport-low-traffic-neighbourhoods-kye-dudd/ [accessed 16 Apr 2021].
HUNT, Jamer. 2017. “Prototyping the Social: Temporality and Speculative Futures at the Intersection of Design and Culture.” In Design Anthropology: Object Cultures in Transition. London: Bloomsbury.
LAVILLE, Sandra. 2019. “Air Pollution Kills Five People in Bristol Each Week, Study Shows.” the Guardian [online]. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/18/air-pollution-kills-bristol-health.
MCQUISTON, Liz. 2015. Visual Impact : Creative Dissent in the 21st Century. London: Phaidon.
OUR AIR OUR CITY. 2020. “Air Pollution: The Facts.” Our Air Our City [online]. Available at: https://ourairourcity.wordpress.com/air-pollution-the-facts/ [accessed 16 Apr 2021].
PIPE, Ellie. 2021. “‘Reverse Graffiti’ Highlights Bristol’s Air Pollution Crisis.” Bristol 24/7 [online]. Available at: https://www.bristol247.com/news-and-features/news/reverse-graffiti-highlights-bristols-air-pollution-crisis/ [accessed 16 Apr 2021].
STEPHENSON, Lorna. 2019. “Seeing through the Fog: Air Pollution Facts.” The Bristol Cable [online]. Available at: https://thebristolcable.org/2019/04/seeing-through-the-fog-air-pollution-facts/.
YATES, Derek and Jessie PRICE. 2015. Communication Design. New York: Fairchild Books Ava.
Lizzie Wa Design 
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