For this project, we designed and built a full scale playful urban installation in Weinland Park that aimed to create a sense of community and liven the spirit of the park.
Research
To start, we went to Weinland Park a couple times to familiarize ourselves with the space and get a sense of what we could do with it. The basketball court especially stood out to us since the vibrant colors of the playground strongly contrasted the black chainlink fence around the basketball court. After our visits, we ultimately concluded these three points about the park.
1. The current spirit of the park, especially the basketball court, feels sad and dreary.
2. The spirit of the park should exhibit the community of the neighborhood.
3. The place needs something to bring people of all ages together.
Iterations
Using Christopher Day's 4 layers methodology, my group began by brainstorming different concepts that would fit each layer and color-coding them as shown in the photo on the left. To the right is a mind map of the concept that we decided to move forward with.
The "chainlink fence inserts" mind map has all of the ideas that we went with circled.
Looking back at the fence, we noticed that the fence was broken up into sections from the bars holding the wiring. We decided to use these sections and divided them by what activity we wanted to place there.
At the start, we included a welcome poster to introduce the product to users. The rest of the layout consists of different activities that would have personalized inserts according to the section. For example, the puzzle section would have puzzle pieces built off the base piece.
Modeling and Testing
After taking multiple measurements of the fence, we started the prototyping process by 3-D printing a diamond-shaped insert with tabs on the sides to hold it in shape. This would be the base piece for all of the inserts.
My group decided to put our focus on specifically prototyping the section of the fence featuring inserts for the classic game, Hangman. We modeled and 3-D printed over 50 letters, and also printed out a life-sized version of the stick figure used in the game. They were all sanded and then the letters were hand painted.
My contribution toward the final product mainly consisted of preparing the physical prototype while my partners took the lead on the digital aspects.
Final Product
Since we were only required to provide a prototype of our project, my group decided to integrate a QR code in our welcome poster that links to a document including all of the renderings of how this final product would look on the fence completely laid out.
Final Renderings
We finalized and rendered a welcome poster and a total of six different activities that could be incorporated into the fence insert pieces, but also at the end included some additional ideas that we had for the product.
On each slide presenting the activities the users can do, there is the title, instructions on how to interact with the section, a highlighted layout of where the activity is on the fence, the rendering of how the pieces in that section would look when in use, and a picture of what the corresponding fence insert would be in the top right corner.
