Sketchbook Project

Sketchbooks on tour across The US. This is a collaborative art project from 1000s of people around the world:



http://arthousecoop.com/projects/sketchbookproject/?utm_source=designsponge&utm_medium=ad&utm_campaign=designsponge-ad

Nuevo Mundo Television

http://www.nuevomundotv.com/

POINTS OF INTEREST IN OUR RESEARCH AND WHAT WE SHOULD LOOK INTO

Points of interest in our Research and What we should look into

·               What’s the literacy rate?

·               Counselling: Women’s centre AND a men’s centre?

·               Community as builders and caretakers

·               Community outreach centres: laundry facilities, skate parks

·               Does Lota recycle?

·               Should we do something proactive when we get there?

·               Educational programs in place for trades/literacy?

·               How do you make them feel “at home” again?

·               Transportation of milk? Pasteurization

·               Preserving historical and cultural significance – tourists coming in for hiking/fishing/etc. “responsible tourism” and “adventure tourism”

·               What kind of activities will tourists like?

·               How do the first tourists orient themselves? Signage, street furniture? Beautifying public spaces, creating pride in their community.

·               Show your interest, don’t take photos and keep your face in your sketchbook the first day

·               If you feel you know best people will be offended or will feel like they’re receiving gifts. Empower them to make choices about their lives and create for themselves

Major Studio Notes 09/23/10

Major Studio Lecture – 09/23/10

·               Research report due in 2 weeks - You don’t need to have all the answers but you should have asked the questions

·               Designing from the inside-out: find the problem and design to solve it

·               Designing from the outside-in: A problem/focus is given to you

·               Social Trends: generational trends, political issues, family/work/activity patterns, health issues, look at patterns/repeated use

·               Economic: political issues, recession, users’ budget, employment rates, product cost (issue for later on)

·               Technology: competitive/comparative products – what are people in similar situations using now? (Comparative products aren’t necessarily geared toward the same market or end user, but may complete the same sort of task, or use similar technology or techniques.

·               When you combine social trends, economic issues, and technological issues you find a perspective product

·               Anthropologic research is trying to see through someone else’s eyes

·               How do you develop innovation? Make the familiar strange. Innovation is a link between two conventions: the one it replaces and the one it becomes. Identify your product opportunity gap

·               Develop an argument

·               Use positioning maps? Low/high style vs. low/high technology. Make it better than what already exists

·               Task analysis: what are the steps in completing a given activity?

·               Product function analysis tree: how does a product complete its task? What are all the things it has to do and how does it accomplish those things, what components does the product have that help to complete the task? First level of this tree - Toaster – cradle the toast, lower it into the toaster, heat up the toast, raise the toast when it’s toasted to an appropriate level.

·               Life cycle analysis: where does the product end up at every stage of its birth, use, and disposal? What are the issues at each step?

·               Value opportunity analysis: what are the product values that are important to a given user?

Deliverables – preliminary research report due 10/07/10

·               Succinct problem statement – your product opportunity gap

·               Clear project direction – what’s the activity?

·               Significant issues – objectives, target user groups, market demographics, market size; competitive/comparative product analysis, ongoing contacts with manufacturers, external experts, and current users.

·               Conclude with a set of design guidelines, outlining features, materials, components, technologies, technical criteria, anticipated measures or criteria for success.

·               Graphic layout, visuals, sketches, charts

·               Turabian style guide

·               Social, economic, technology, users.

·               Breakdown for research: who was it, who was it for, what happened, where, when, why, and how.

Design Brief

Format with team logo, title, one-liner “elevator pitch” (very top of your brief), general context (what do you know?), introduction, background, opportunity, challenge, problem, user focus, SET (social economic technology) factors, competitive landscape, design specs, measures for success, and evaluation criteria (the last two are going to be with you for the year, how else will you know if your design is successful?)

·               Problem Statement

·               Project Definition

·               Project Objectives

·               Target user groups – demographics – market size

·               Competitive product analysis

Destrucción Biblioteca Municipal de Lota

Video Conference and Meeting - Identifying Themes

Group: Lota Renovación + IWB
Agenda: Identify project themes, appropriate research methods, case study research
Location: 4th year studio + ID electronics lab
Date: September 16th, 2010
Starting and Ending Time: 12:30pm - 6:00pm

To narrow down our research, we have isolated several themes, based on:
Public vs Private and Physiological vs Community Actualization

• What are the daily rituals around meal preparation or personal hygiene?
• What are some meaningful places and artifacts in their homes?

Public Spaces. For example, Case Studies of different communities that were able to revitalize cultural centres and turn stagnant industries into artefacts and sources of knowledge. Potential cultural sites in Lota include:

• Teatro Lota
• El Chiflon del Diablo
• Hydroelectric Plant

Physiological. For example, Case studies of communities able to rebuild themselves after collapse of local industry or a natural catastrophe. Questions to ask:

• What is the potential for the development of a local industry on a national level?
• What are the issues of housing and meeting of basic needs, such as sanitation and food storage?

Community Actualization. For example, Case studies of communities able to rebrand themselves after collapse of local industry or a natural catastrophe. Questions to ask:

• What are potentials for attracting tourism to such communities? Art, Culture, Nature, Knowledge.
• How to instill pride into a community and stimulate participation? Sports, Unions.

Agenda:

Prepare a case study document for IWB group by Tuesday, September 21st.

Inital Group Brainstorm

Group Meeting #1

Group: Lota Renovación

Agenda: Identify project themes, compile information, assemble map of Lota, create blog
Location: 4th year studio
Date: September 15th, 2010
Starting and Ending Time: 12:00pm - 1:45pm

After much brainstorming, the group has come up with the title, which is reflected in the name of the blog. Lota Renovación spells renewal of Lota, while closely collaborating with and learning from the community.

A high-resolution map of Lota has given much insight and stimulated many questions and comments, such as:

• Football (soccer) appears to be one of the central recreational activities in Lota. There is a large open stadium dedicated to this purpose as well as weekly team meetings in Casa de la Mujer (according to Michelle's presentation)

• Lota combines oceanic air with surrounding forests, which could potentially be transformed into beautiful beaches and National Reserves. Potential for natural studies, hiking, enjoying local beaches. Ecotourism?

  
  

  
• What are Lota's unique features aside from historical coal mines? What are primary sources of income?
• What are some precise problems with funding Lota's rebuilding of homes, provided that Lota's municipal government was exceptionally proactive in dealing with the emergency of the earthquake?
• What could be possible motivations for the community (specifically men) to actively participate in Lota's renewal?
• Where do people of Lota see themselves in 10 years, in 50 years?

The conclusion of this meeting was to further research towns that used to specialize in one industry, became ghost towns, and remained stagnant or rebranded themselves (examples: Sudbury ON, Flint MI). Another direction the group has decided to follow was to research towns damaged by earthquakes and able to come back to life (examples: Skopje in Yugoslavia 1963, Lisbon 1755, Leninakan in Soviet Armenia 1988)

Various methods for establishing communication are to include speaking Spanish (even if most primitive), photography, drawings, small gifts. To achieve the former, the group is to start practicing Spanish language during meetings, share study material, and expand vocabulary.

Agenda for September 16th:

• video conference with IWB on September 16th, 1:00pm
• continue researching and sharing information

Weekend Workshop with IWB Group

Group: Lota Renovación + IWB Group
Agenda: Exercise, lectures on Lota and IWB, brainstorming, BBQ
Locations: 4th year studio, Review Room, Lois' Sailing Club
Date: September 11th, 2010
Starting and Ending Time: 10:00am - 11:00pm

Exercise
Lois recruited Diana for a short one-hour excercise, during which we had to graphically answer a question "In Chile/Lota Project I see myself..."Everyone got a bristle board, stickers, and printed pictures/words that we could use to answer this question. Each student then presented their work.

Lectures
Lois Frankel
Lois introduced Michelle and Luigi (IWB project coordinators) and went on to talk about different methods of collecting data. It is obvious that collecting data using one method is not enough. A perfect example of it was the previous excercise (see: Exercise), in which we had to answer a question with the help of provided aid from instructors.

The result could have been much more telling if the question was formulated in different ways and the provided aid (such as bristle board) would have been more diversified.
Contextual mapping is only one of many methods ofdata collection.

Apparently, industrial designers are not very good at analysis, but are excellent at observation. With this project we will further develop the latter and learn the former.

Michelle Hotchin
Michelle's presentation consisted of slides and stories about Lota. This is Lota's logo, which translates into english as: History and Force that Moves Us.

The modern city grew with the coal mining industry in the mid-nineteenth century. It was established as a town on January 5, 1875 and became a city on 30 of November 1881. The name Lota is thought to be derived from a Mapudungun word Louta meaning small or insignificant settlement. The city’s coal mines were nationalized by Salvador Allende due to civil unrest and heavy Socialist support, but privatized again under Augusto Pinochet.

In the 1990s, after Lota’s coal resources were nearly exhausted and cheaper Colombian coal came on the market, the mines were closed, plunging the residents of Lota into poverty.Today, Lota is one of the poorest cities in Chile and is trying to turn its economy towards tourism. Tourist attractions include guided visits to the coal mine, White Beach, the Park of Lota (created by the Cousiño family), and the Historical Museum of Lota. The current population (2002) is 49,089. Central Lota has a lot of pedestrian walkways, and is big on street art, not just tags, but beautiful wall paintings. Horses and cattle are often used for transportation. One of the feature elements in Lota architecture are porticoes.

It seems, Chile has a strong municipal government, which is not highly influenced by the regional. After the earthquake hit, many buildings bacame known as "liar buildings" or pelligros. That means, they look fine on the exterior, but the structure within is nearly destroyed, rendering them unsafe to inhabit.

Two thousand five hundred (2,500) homes were destroyed, and people were moved into 18 square meters campamentos with no running water or proper bathrooms, introducing problems with mud, dirt, and lack of sanitation.

An interesting phenomen surfaced, when men refused to work low wage jobs at reconstructing the town, and women were the ones to pick up shovels and initiating post-catastrophe clean-up. Unemployment in Lota is 20% (official), 30% (unofficial).
Here's a link to Casa Digna, a short video on the destruction of Lota.

The video that Michelle showed us during the presentation was directed by Samuel Landaur (samylanda@gmail.com).

All the Chile Project slides and information will be forwarded to us later this month.

Cost: $1050 (tickets) + $132 (border tax) + $300 (spending money)
We are departing on October 23rd from Toronto (it is our responsibility to get to Toronto by the afternoon of that day) and return on October 31st - November 1st.
Things to bring: cash, travel health insurance (a must!), flea spray, layers of clothing, shower shoes, towel, cameras, laptops, adapters (220 Vt).

We will also later travel to Toronto to meet with IWB group again: November 4th - November 7th

Luigi Ferrara
Luigi gave an excellent introduction to the history and projects of IWB, which will also be forwarded to us later.

Agenda for this week (revised as per Lois' recommendation):

• meet on September 15th, 12:00pm to identify the themes that came up during the weekend workshop
• begin to compile and archive general information
• print Lota map in high resolution
• video conference with IWB on September 16th, 1:00pm
• continue researching and sharing information

Lota Renovación Project Introduction

A group of Carleton University students of industrial design will collaborate with students at George Brown College’s Institute Without Boundaries program in designing solutions for the town of Lota in Chile. This is year two of the IWB project examining the various systems that make up the city as well as the recent earthquake damage of the city of Lota.

Carleton students have joined the students of IWB in this project and have started working on proposal of a holistic revitalization plan for the city that will address basic human needs such as shelter, food, and hygiene while also supporting the city’s goal of long-term economic renewal through tourism and cultural development.

Advisor:

Lois Frankel

Carleton students (in alphabetical order):

Rachel Bussin

Rahim Bhimani

Alëna Iouguina

Jane Marusaik

Samantha Serrer

Yasaman Sheri

IWB Website

Carleton School of Industrial Design Website