ChalkTalk
the context
Research has shown that 51% of Americans are interested in biking for transportation, but don't because of fear of personal safety on the road. City leaders are looking to capture this audience to reduce car congestion and improve air quality. However, federal and state funding for city road infrastructure has been steadily declining over the past few decades, leading many cities to look towards local tax-based funding sources that require significant public participation and approval. As the transportation sector continues to innovate, cities need better ways of planning, designing, and building infrastructure with and for their residents. Many low-income and disenfranchised communities often receive these pieces of infrastructure but lack other more critical facilities like covered transit stops and sidewalks.
The Project
My MFA Thesis in Design focused on investigating ways designers can help city leaders and planners build better infrastructure, not only just for the 51% of commuters mentioned above, but for the communities historically overlooked, redlined, and segregated from the planning process. Additionally emerging "micromobility" modes and privatized transportation enterprises continue to challenge established city infrastructure built soley for cars. By combining tools used in transportation research, public life studies, and design thinking, I created ChalkTalk, a framework for planners, designers, and residents alike to rapidly research and test new transportation infrastructure.
the research
- Conducted multiple street studies over a two-year period to understand the influence the built environment has on movement patterns.
- Interviewed working professionals on their commuting habits, assessed their level of knowledge in transportation infrastructure, and gained insight on the motivations and context that guide their commute decisions.
- Interviewed city planners and design professionals on effective (and ineffective) public participation tactics.
- Worked with community organizers and bike advocacy leaders to understand pain points and opportunities in community engagement.
- Developed the framework through self-initiated subversive infrastructure projects.
the framework
The framework is an augmented design thinking process tailored to designing and testing projects in the built environment: tools like pedestrian environment audits and public life studies provides methods of observing and measuring activity on city streets; participatory democracy allows designers, planners, and residents to ideate together; tactical urbanism becomes an approach to rapid prototyping. To put the framework into the hands of residents, I created a booklet that walks people through the process step-by-step, and encourages them to share their ideas with city staff.
the results
During my collaborative MFA Design Exhibition, Work for Progress, I showcased the five projects above and distributed over 30 booklets to attendees. The booklet and framework became a valuable toolkit in generating projects ideas during a 10-month public artist residency in Salem, MA, which helped found my collaborative studio Creative Blocks. Additionally, the framework was useful in guiding Cambridge youth through a self-initiated park redesign during the 2021 Neighborhood Design Project, a program organized by Design Museum Foundation that teaches young adults how to tackle wicked problems in their community using Human Centered Design processes. The booklet has also been used as a teaching aid for Public Design Intervention project in a core graduate design course at The University of Baltimore for the past four years.