Corner Exchange

urban gentrification

 

PROBLEM

  1. Lack of trust between original and new residents of a gentrifying community. 

  2. Original residents cannot contribute to the changes in their own community.

  3.  Redevelopers are far removed from what the people want for their community.

 

DESIRED OUTCOME

  1. All residents have shared agency in the changes being made to their community without fear of being displaced. 

  2. All residents share social equity in benefiting from the improvements made to their community.

 

SOLUTION

  1. A mobile truck that takes diverse members of a community to different pockets of a developing neighborhood and uses Design Thinking activities to empower the passengers to co-create proposals WITH urban developers that benefit both original and incoming residents alike.

  2. Design facilitators are community volunteers who coalesce the results of each co-creative session into a greater proposal that the redevelopers can take into consideration before breaking ground on their urban renewal projects.

A service design proposal for social innovation in urban redevelopment that improves levels of civility within transitioning communities and connects developers with the people they affect.

MISSION

Implementing principles of design thinking to public spaces as a way to encourage civic engagement, while improving levels of human civility within transitioning communities.  

 

ACTIONABLE CHANGE

Design a service that gives inhabitants of a transitioning neighborhood agency over the changes being made to their neighborhoods.  

Provide an embedded tool that facilitates co-creative experiences between community members and the redevelopers who affect change in these neighborhoods.

Mobilize transitioning communities to develop from within by providing an interactive platform to have their voices heard.

 

Finding common ground before breaking ground

INFORMATIONAL POSTER

Enabling members of a community to have their voices heard

FINAL CONCEPT DELIVERABLES

Welcome Kit

  1. A physical keepsake given to each passenger with a photo  commemorating their experience.
  2. Contains a session guide describing what to expect during the co-creative experience and a map of the area in question.
 

Contents of Proposal Booklet

  1. mission statement
  2. map of our community focus group
  3. proposal to a mayoral candidate
  4. current stakeholder analysis
  5. proposed stakeholder analysis
  6. service blueprint
  7.  service touch points
  8. participant action journey map
  9. service scenario
  10. truck branding
  11. basic web portal layout
 
 

Sketches for final concept

PROCESS WORK

INITIAL CONCEPT 

Interactive screens designed to enrich the waiting experience at traditional bus stops and encourage strangers to engage with each other in a fun and unconventional manner.  The goal was to get people living in a diverse community to lower their guards and exchange information about themselves or share an experience with someone that they otherwise would have never taken the time to speak to or get to know.

 
 

A UI flow for a use case where a participant chooses to interact with a stranger in a remote location instead of one in their immediate vicinity. 

SAMPLE OF STAKEHOLDER INTERVIEWS

Is there a need for increased levels of civility within a transitioning neighborhood?

We set out to better understand our demographic by interviewing East Liberty residents in their local Target shopping center . This is what they had to say about uncomfortable topic of gentrification.

CONCEPTUAL MAPPING + SKETCHING

GENERATIVE RESEARCH TOOL

An adjustable pie chart allowed participants to visually quantify which categories of personal information they were willing to comfortably share about themselves with strangers.

 
Copyright © 2014, Keith Joseph. All rights reserved.