Union Loop – Charette Reflection

Jack Ratterree

I feel like the time constraint was mainly an issue for my group because we didn’t start with the topic given to us, but, instead, developed a topic on our own to be addressed. This lead to a lot of conceptual work which I really like to do. I have a problem where I need to fully understand a concept and play around and research it before making anything. With a two week timeline, this wasn’t really possible but I still found myself getting lost in analysis paralysis. I think that the constraint of working with my classmates wasn’t in their performance or even that it was a group project. But, rather, I feel like the constraint was that we had too many people per group. At any given time, it felt like three people were really working hard on the project when two others weren’t. This isn’t specific to certain people; even I found myself with nothing to do while my team was busy because the work was hard to pass off to other people. I really think this project should have been three people per group rather than five. Then everyone could have worked efficiently the entire time.

In the future I will be more reliant on the others in my group to pull me out of my analysis paralysis and get me working on actual deliverables. I will also be more careful to work smarter rather than harder especially when the deliverable isn’t necessarily the graphic design examples, but a poster presenting them.

Working in a group definitely helped motivate me to work more on the project. Instead of relying on others to come up with ideas, I felt more excited and more open to discussing an iffy idea and seeing different perspectives on it (versus tossing it out right off the bat). I don’t think working in a group effected my focus or productivity because we worked well individually and weren’t reliant on each other. However, it was definitely more difficult to make a cohesive final deliverable within the group because everyone had a different take on the brand and project itself.

For my group, I developed our project conceptually through research of the areas and proposing a topic beyond Riverwalk and ideated for actual deliverables. I made mockups of the user interface and defined the features and task flow of the app. I animated sections for the final video. I also collated the work of the group and designed the final poster.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2nFSH7Ul_DDMGtMTE5uMjB0TW8

Raleigh River Walk

Many Neighborhoods, One Community

Jack, Julia, Nicole, Ashley, & Megan

Statement of Purpose: Rather than emphasizing the idea of a unified social collective, our initiative aims to amplify and celebrate the diversity between Raleigh neighborhoods while creating enriched connections between individuals, neighborhoods, and communities.

Concept: We strive to enhance the identity of Raleigh neighborhoods by creating the opportunity for residents to become placemakers. Similar to the “Paint the Pavement” initiative, we envision creating an annual event in which residents congregate to paint semi-permanent street murals along the Rocky Branch Trail that visually encapsulate the current cultural climate of neighborhoods in Raleigh (please see below for more details on location).

However, to establish a true sense of participation, we want to take it a step further by enabling everyone in the community to co-create the design. We challenge ourselves to determine a method that enables individuals to visually recognize his/her contribution. This could potentially take the form of a supporting app and/or website.

Although each neighborhood creates a customized, unique visual identity we also propose to create a unifying branding system through which we conceptually integrate individuals into neighborhoods and neighborhoods into a larger community.

Location: The Rocky Branch Trail runs through a variety of Raleigh neighborhoods and park systems along the Capital Greenway Trail System. The trail has the potential to catalyze dynamic partnerships by providing a culturally neutral venue.

The street murals also serve as an alternative form of wayfinding that suggests a reconceptualization of the definition of a neighborhood. Traditional signs and maps imply neighborhoods are bound by arbitrary demarcations. However, the murals as “signage” intimate that neighborhoods are defined by the people that comprise them rather than their physical locations.

CONNECTING THE MARTIN STREET CONNECTOR TO The Rocky Branch Trail through Boylan Heights and Raleigh Union Station enables accessibility by creating a loop.

Aims/Challenges:

• Establish a real sense of participation: give citizens tangible way to contribute
• Encourage Involvement:
  • keep interactions simple, straightforward, and accessible. Input needs to be succinct to encourage maximum user participation
  • Allow Access: Maintain physical (closing the gap between the Martin Street connector, Raleigh Union Station through Boylan Heights to create a loop) as well as cognitive accessibility
• Co-Creation
  • Is this essentially a crowdsourcing app that utilizes user input to aid in the design of the mural?
    • The mural is essentially a form of data visualization that allows people to see what is currently important to the neighborhood.