Charette Reflection

To say this project was unique is an understatement. Normally, a two-week project would be stressful enough on its own. Add the fact that our topics were provided to us off the bat and that we had to work in assigned groups made the Charette even more daunting at the beginning. In the end, though, I think our project turned out better that it would’ve if we’d worked on it alone. In my group, I was in charge of making the video, mapping out the new Beltline District, and contributed to the branding of the project.

At first, the constraints seemed like they would make this process a pain – and at times they did. But just like any project, the deadline never seems far enough away. We made it work and got it done without any major issues. My biggest concern at the beginning was working in a group in general, let alone with a group I didn’t pick. Group projects are notoriously frustrating. It’s always hard to get everyone’s opinions and ideas to mesh, to distribute the work evenly, and to trust that your counterparts will help get everything done to the best of their ability. In this instance, I was very thankful that everyone in my group was very open and communicative, and willing to help each other out. If I hadn’t been paired with the group that I had been, I don’t know if our process would have been as smooth. The design process pulled from all of us, and we ended up with something different than any of us would’ve made individually.

For the future, I think this experience just reminded me that collaboration is always worth the headache. Whether it’s in this context, or other contexts, working with others or simply getting additional input is helpful in bettering the quality of your work. I hope I can carry that mindset into other projects and future group endeavors, which will calm my nerves starting out.

I think one of the biggest benefits about working in groups is motivation to do your part. When you work individually, you are only accountable to yourself. If you procrastinate, or take the easy way out, it only affects you. In a group setting, you’re accountable to all your group mates. That made us motivated to get our tasks done and to do them well, because no one wants to be the worst in the group. I also think working together improves the quality of work at the end, at least in the respect that more people have worked on it, so it takes into consideration a number of different perspectives and ideas. In a group, it’s less likely you’ll proceed with your first idea, or an idea that not everyone is sold on. The need for approval from everyone before moving forward means your work is examined more carefully. On the other hand, I do think that in this setting, productivity and efficiency can suffer in groups. We have to constantly check in with each other, and discuss every little thing before moving on. That slows down the process, which can be stressful.

All in all, I think I learned quite a bit from this charette. While I still don’t particularly cheer for group project in the academic setting, I enjoyed this project and the group I was a part of. We made it through the process without conflict, and I’m proud of the final design we presented.

Design Charette Reflection – Anina van der Vorst

Constraints

The constraints of this project require you to jump straight in get going. The time constraint forced us to focus in quickly. We were given this relatively large piece of land to conceptualize with little to no knowledge about the history or culture of Durham. After visiting the site itself, things began to fall into place for me. I found it easier to envision what this space could be and let my mind run free with possibilities. After the visit, my group was able to throw out a bunch of ideas that could be possibly points of intervention. The two week time period made me not take the project as seriously. I wasn’t worried as much about the feasibility of our interventions, but was able to focus on what the future could hold. Having the topic provided worked well for such a short project because we didn’t have the time to research all of the other options. There are millions of things that need a bit of a revamp, and trying to narrow down a sea of options would have taken so long. I think that our group worked really well together. Although we were not always able to all meet up outside of class, we worked efficiently in class and then worked in smaller pairs or groups to make sure we were all on the same page when designing. Splitting up tasks also helped us to get out work done quickly and also made sure that everyone was contributing their strongest abilities to the group.

Opportunity

Working in groups will most likely be an everyday occurrence for careers, so getting that experience under my belt was useful for me. I found that it is important for group members to check their egos at the door and focus on the task at hand, and when ideating, there is no such thing as a bad idea. I also found it useful that each member of the group was able to articulate their strengths and weaknesses as well as their interests and disinterest when we started dividing up the work. We were open about when we were feeling stuck, and all joined together to help get unstuck. This helped everything run much smoother. This short two-week project sparked my interest for the endless possibilities that can be thought up in a short period of time. I also felt more comfortable thinking outrageously when it came to solutions. I would definitely be open to doing more of these charrettes to keep my inspired and get out of the everyday routine and focus on what life might be like 5, 10, or 20 years from now.

Application

Working in a group always motivates me to work harder and better. This motivation increases when all of my group members have a team attitude. Knowing that others are counting on you not only makes me work harder, but also makes me more passionate about my work. I am more motivated to create an environment where everyone feels appreciated and needed. I think motivation also increased when everyone feels the same excitement about what they are working on. Working in a group also helped me not lose interest our idea. We were constantly throwing ideas around, changing things, and pushing each other to create the best work. I think that our group dynamic helped us to create a project that we were all proud of and all felt connected to.

We all worked collaboratively on ideation and developing our idea. I worked closely with Kayla to establish our brand colors and typefaces. Along with the rest of my group, I documented our process both in images and in video. I also created the final presentation poster.

Presentation

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0BwcIIfqQRpPFdEFXTnFrd3hDY2M?usp=sharing

Future Recommendations

I would suggest that each designer should approach the project with un-biased eyes and leave your ego at the door. Understand that everyone has something to contribute to the project, and be willing to help you group members along when they are feeling stuck or uninspired. Also, find ways to inspire your group members. And don’t forget to work hard and work fast.

“I DEFINE DURHAM” Reflection – Jasmine Lang (Group D)

Having these constraints hindered and benefited my workflow at the same time. Because we only had two weeks to research and make, I couldn’t let myself get stuck and dwell on ideas too long (as I tend to do). I had to make sure I made a good amount of progress each time we met. Since I had a topic provided to me, it meant I spent a lot less time trying to find the “perfect” idea to tackle. However, that also meant I didn’t feel as invested into the project. It didn’t feel as unique, especially when other groups were developing similar interventions for the same place. And having to collaborate with classmates was definitely a struggle, even though we all got along well. It was nice to have others to generate ideas, bounce ideas around, and take up some of the workload. However, I feel that having more people also limited our productivity. Our schedules were really different and it was hard for us to find times to meet in-person that weren’t late at night. There were times where we all had to wait for each other to complete their part of the project before we could move on, so we each experienced periods of stagnation. The fact that our (Adobe) software didn’t allow real-time remote collaboration like Google Drive also didn’t help. Actually, having more ideas wasn’t always a good thing. At times, we struggled to pick one concept to focus on and go with because we liked all the ideas we came up with!

This wasn’t the first time I had done design group work, but it was the first time I had such a short time frame to work in. Even though it was a very stressful and exhausting experience, I think working in a charrette was a necessary experience for me. It’ll help me prepare for the fast-paced collaborative work in the real world. I still have a hard time not getting stuck on minute details, and this project forced me to move on quickly. Sometimes, I felt that even two weeks was too long for a project. So perhaps I’d want to try shorter charrettes/challenges in the future (not now though because I’m still recovering!).

Obviously working with others meant that I worked harder and longer. I didn’t want to let my teammates down. And I didn’t want them to shoulder too much of the workload. When I was working with my group in-person, I tended to get more done because I could easily get feedback along the way. It was much easier to ask for help and explain what I was doing though visuals and speech instead of text messages. Seeing them working hard also motivated me to work hard. When I wasn’t with my group, I had a harder time focusing on the project because of other duties. Perhaps there were times where we ended up distracting one another because our brains began to fizzle out, but those distractions helped lighten the mood and relieve stress. I’d say our final design intervention turned out pretty well since we had more than one person working and good group dynamics. Not only did we each do what we were assigned, we would share ideas for, give feedback on, and help out with other members’ portions. We were all involved in each part.

My takeaways: Plan ahead when you make site visits so you don’t end up driving around aimlessly and wasting time. Foster an open environment where everyone can contribute an equal amount. Don’t be afraid to share ideas with your groupmates, even if you think they sound dumb. They might lead to ideas you’d never thought of otherwise (or at least evoke laughter and lower stress a little). And try not to procrastinate, even if you don’t feel very motivated to do the project. You’ll regret it when you’re stuck in studio at 1am, starving and working feverishly the last few days.

GO TEAM! Thanks for all your hard work!

Link to our project:

• https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B1ybPggY3GIYX3BXbF9UU3lWR1E

(Group D: Jasmine, Sydney, Madi, Nick)

 

Design Charrette Reflection – Logan LaBo

My Part

The deliverable that I was responsible for was the video for the presentation. Our group deemed the poster and video as important as the rest of the deliverables. Although I did make the video almost entirely myself I did have a big role in our branding and in developing most of the other concepts that became of other deliverables as well as making the first set of mock ups for the AR experience.

Constraints

My design process for completing the “Design Charrette” project was greatly affected by several different constraints. The first of these constraints was the smaller time frame we had two complete the project, two weeks. The smaller time frame forced me to rush my design process. I don’t think that I forfeited any of my usual steps in my design process. I simply did not spend as much time on each of the steps of my design process and thought much more critically about what I was doing at every step, to be as productive as possible and save time. The next constraint I dealt with was having a topic provided to me, instead of developing my own topic. I didn’t find this nearly as challenging of a constraint as the time factor was. In fact, the structure of having a topic assigned to me kept me on topic and was most useful. Although early in the design process we did find that being able to focus some of our work beyond the Durham Beltline area would have been helpful. The final constraint I dealt with was having to work with classmates on the project. While I do believe the sum of our work is much greater than anything I could have accomplished on my own, it was very challenging to work with other classmates. I believe at this point in our design education each of my classmates and I have developed our own style, workflow, schedule and design language. Each of these traits clashes when working with others, and getting everyone on the same page was extremely difficult.

 

 

Opportunity

 

I envision this experience of a group design project will inform my future design work in several ways. The first way I envision my future design work is influenced by the experiences I’ve had in this design project is how I work in groups. When working in groups in the future I will push the importance of everyone being responsible for certain deliverables. While I believe that outcome of the deliverables will be better if everyone works collaboratively, I think that if everyone is not responsible for one deliverable from the start, that work will be delayed. To that end, if those who are not good at pacing themselves are not forced by someone to do so i.e. goals or milestones are not set, the final product will be affected. Therefore, I would plan to do those things in future group projects. The second thing I’m taking from this experience is that a Charrette-style project can be very helpful but also very stressful. If I had the opportunity to participate in a focused charrette in the future I would likely do so, but I would prefer them to be much shorter and with much less expectation, to still feel the rush and fast ideation but not feel so stressed to produce so much. Finally, I learned that when approaching a new way of working or group of co-workers, the best possible thing I can do is keep an open yet ready to work mindset. By doing this I can be free of prejudices and biases and be as productive as possible.

 

Application

 

When doing the group work for the team I felt responsible for the work of the entire group and not just my own. I knew that if I didn’t finish the work on time that I was responsible, then I knew that I would be letting the whole group down. So, I was constantly motivated to work harder to have what I was responsible for on time for everyone to move forward. I could stay motivated simply because of the stress of the reasons I just stated. I did feel that sometimes the constrictions of the project and the opinions of my professors of the path to move forward became so constricting that it felt impossible to find a path forward and this often became very frustrating and often broke my focus and concentration. But I usually just had to take a step back and brainstorm to work around these barriers. I do believe that the end quality of our designs was much better because of the crossing of ideas and opinions between our group. We developed a series of checks and balances, which I believe led to an overall better product. Although I do believe some of my group members contributed to this product less than others.

The following link shows our design process, deliverables, and reflection:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0Bx8W79xGq1vCYkFzeWpYclJmd1U?usp=sharing

 

Proposition

My proposition for future students participating in this Design Charrette would be to work hard and work fast.

Me: Logan LaBo

My Group: Logan, Conor, Allison, Ari, Sam

Charette Reflection

Over the past two weeks I really enjoyed collaborating with my group members to develop of final branding project of The Kit and Tidings at The Kit. However having only two weeks did put constraints on our project. We tried to cover all of our bases — the logo, brand colors, general feel, idea, and concepts, and visuals for our event — but we could not experiment as much as we wanted with our ideas. I felt like we didn’t have time to figure out the logistics of how the paper boat would go down the river or the animation with the logo that was discussed during our critique.The two weeks forced us to graze the surface of our brand, but it did not give us time to dive deep into how it would all work and true make a brand that was completely faithful to our ideas. If we had more time we could have tested our idea on waterproof paper to see if it would work and maybe even float it in a body of water.
Having a topic assigned to our group narrowed down what we could do and how far out we could go with it because we had to stay with the idea and feel of “Raleigh Riverwalk.” I felt like because the title we were given had “river” in it, it had to be about the water, but when I visited the site I got more confused because it was just a tiny, dirty stream on the side of the road, not a grand riverwalk. However, I think this was needed because of the time constraint. Having a topic assigned to us allowed us to dive straight into the area instead of brainstorming different ideas of what we could do for hours.
I think working with people made the project a little more difficult. Everyone has their personal preferences, opinions, and styles. Normally this would cause a lot of issues and debates about where we should go with the project, however, I think my group had the same vision of our project from the start and I think our different styles complimented each other. However, I will say that working with people who all have different schedules does make it difficult to find times to meet and work on the project.
This project definitely helped me grow as a collaborator. It made me feel more comfortable sharing my ideas without feeling self conscious and worried that people will think it is a horrible idea. It also made me feel more confident when I back up the reasons for my ideas, because I do have good ideas. Paired with this, it has helped me be able to give and receive criticism without attaching emotions to it because I know it is not personal and people want to help me be the best that I can be. It has also showed me my strengths as a collaborator: I think I am good at conveying ideas in a way that makes sense, compromising, as well as immediately going with an idea once it is decided on.
This project has taught me how to make quick and sure decisions while still having enough research to back them up. As well as being able to orally back it up when people as why these were the decisions. It taught me how to better use my imagination during a project and showed me that it is okay to let your imagination run wild; if we did not imagine that a beautiful and popular Riverwalk was already set up and thriving, we would not have been as successful. It also taught me that my final idea can completely stray from my first impressions, which how it should be. It taught me how to look further than just the dirty stream and see potential in a forgotten area.
Because of this project, I know that in the future when I approach a new design experience I need to keep an open mind, not ruling anything out until I finally see potential or a direction to go in. I will go in with a knowledge that my idea will stray from the first ones that come to mind, as well as the importance for researching the background information of my beginning ideas, as well as different aspects of my projects that I come up with.
I think working in a group made me more motivated to do my work because I knew that others were counting on me to do my work and have it ready for our next check in during class because I did not want them to suffer because of me. Sometimes when I work alone on projects I get distracted, however, I feel like I was a lot more focused and productive during this project, I think this is because the motivation and productivity of other members of my group rubbed off on me and made me want to be focused and productive as well. I also like that since there were five people in my group there were five peoples’ minds continuously turning out new ideas, which kept us imagining and excited when working on the project.
I think working with people elevates the level and quality of the end design deliverable. Everyone is their own expert. Each group member has a different specialty that they worked on in the project so it could be the best that it could be. For example, we all worked on the brainstorming, and since we are all different people we developed different ideas. After we decide on what we needed to do we broke up the project between each of us.
Sarah and I co-designed most of our contribution to the project because we know we work well together and have similar ideas and styles. We worked on wayfinding: deciding where we needed wayfinding points, the style of the wayfinding system, and the look of this system. I also designed the stationary that would be used to write the tidings on and then Sarah and I made mock ups by going through the process for writing the tidings, folding the boats, unfolding the boats, responding to each other’s messages, and then pinning them up in an installation. Sarah and I also co-managed the instagram account Tidings_at_the_Kit that would advertise for the event as well as update followers with new information about the event as well developed the hashtags #shipoutgoodtidings so that we can further advertise for the event through other people’s instagrams and their followers. All in all I think the stress that came with a two week project was definitely worth it because everything I gained from this experience.

Thematic Readings – Chapter 6: Conviviality Summary (Logan, Nikita, Arianna)

Healthcare, as it is now, in first world countries is moving in a directions that is unsustainable. More and more money is being spent on new technology and more pressure is being put on large organizations to provide care, even though they are not equipped to do so. Thackara proposes a move toward a decentralized system, like multiple, smaller, multi-use spaces (like urgent cares), rather than one large central space (a hospital). He also states that technology should be a tool to aid better care rather than the end-all answer that replaces the human contact that is care. Additionally, people are living longer than in the past. There is a whole group of elders that are not targeted as a viable market, even though they hold a majority of the wealth in the economy.

He also introduces the idea that we are not creating in a sustainable way. We are not thinking about the big picture enough and need to learn from our elders about how to move forward. As a whole, people are more isolated from each other than before. Thackara concludes that work is bad for our health there has been a decline in satisfaction and serious health ramifications. This is across all jobs and income brackets and regions. Because of this social communication has become overwhelmingly local and isolated. Thackara encourages community building to address these problems.