Light up The Edge Design session

Held on Monday 26th March 2018 in the Fabrication Lab

Preparation

Book a facilitator or do it yourself

Book the space

Buy snacks

Cold water and glasses

sticky notes

pens

white board and markers

table and chairs

The plan by Nathen Street

1. Welcome to Country

I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet today and pay my respects to the Elders past, present and emerging. I extend my respect to the Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people who are present today.

2. Introductions

a. Who is everyone? What is your name, what is the craziest project you've ever built or worked on in a group

b. Who am I? What I do?

3. Focus: What are we doing here? How long do we have?

a. We’re here to make a light installation.

- Monday 26th March: Light design session

- Thursday 29th March 5.30-8pm prototype

- Thursday 5th April 5.30-8pm iterate

- Thursday 12th April 5.30-8pm make

- Weekend 14th April make and install.

So tonight we’ll be focusing on design thinking. It’ll give us a chance to think about colour, shape, light and space. Through a series of activities we’ll together break apart what we think about light.

Then on Thursday we’ll take what we learnt tonight and start shaping our design, coming up with solutions, which we’ll eventually refine and build over the next couple of weeks.

4. Activity: space - what about it?

Describe your journey once you got into the Cultural Precinct tonight. What stood out to you? What was it? A tree? The river?

What do you remember about it? The shape? The colour? The smell?

a. Coffee shop, need coffee, knew its there

b. Pond outside - bronze spheres, contrast water, tourist sitting staring at cityscape and bridge which was purple

c. Community member 1: light at the library, security guard herding kids, Shepherd with kids

d. Community member 2: lack of lights, pretty bleak along the way

e. Community member 3: sat in quad string of lights, pink and yellow, ping on white lights , nice indoor outdoor

f. Community member 4: last time here noticed square blocky sign thing points edge to museum

g. Community member 5: dark, big neon sign at GOMA, couldn’t tell if it was for hotel or gallery, stood out, retro sign in (modern) present, touch screens (bright)

h. Community member 6: whisky clouds

5. Activity (brainstorm) : Light. (Focus design, ask why questions, write down what I hear, pay special attention to moments that feel like deeper understanding into why the person does what they do)

a. What is the purpose of light?

b. Where is light?

c. How do we control light?

d. How do you use light?

e. What light appeals to you? (Sunlight? Fluro light? Afternoon sunsets?, Moonlight? Glow in the dark light?)

i. Community member: light as communication, easy distinguish, neon needs to be clear what its trying to mean, at what is trying to say. Fluoro: stand out, something draws attention, something that communicates needs to draw the eye, get people to want to investigate, not blinking animated light flow on to tell a story and keep engaged, blinking distracts, light that may start on the left and move to the right, moving beams. Not too bright or too fast, Matthew has epilepsy. They do stuff. Unpredictability of light at time

ii. Community member: Morse code, someone may notice there’s an underlying message. Triggered by communication. Long light short light. Message “come inside”, what are tracer lights bands that build up and flow, like Kaiju , like the colour flow that goes between pink, purple and blue, colours remind you of: warmth, flowers, garden, your hair,

iii. Bright: something that stands out, more primary in colour use of neons attracts people, Fluoro: luminous: really glowing, subtle: perhaps use of colour, through fog, faintness Andy: then totally luminous, busting out

iv. Community member: sunset, where I live I see the whole clouds, the clouds block some of the light out, light rays, organs or red. Sky is is beautiful. Bright colours, pinks, colours and blues, in awe of the whole. Makes her think it’s a painting

v. Community member: leader lights: path through front door to stars, chevron light as an arrow, climbing floor, to pathways, indicate path. Words: panel some words please come in, just another scene, can have Morse code and letters

vi. Community member; light in dark. Closing of winter Olympics, drone lights created a 3D snowboarder, novel, created a point cloud, white, it was unexpected. Eel wire, sculptural, has to be dark to see it. . Fun / positive: it’s a attractive, someone riding past on bicycle with delights on wheels, gives pleasure, like sunset which is a beautiful experience, awe in beauty of nature, colour evokes emotion or memory. What unusual light: formation of drones, see people with lights and letters

vii. Community member: changing interactive light, if someone comes close it would change colour, or shape, it moved and then it “change”, motion sensors, luminance: something any movie or stores you hear about God appearing, luminance light appears/becomes rays, interesting lights, appears in rays, light and shadow: light is also interesting with shadow, use plain and insole cardboard to create letters, people, something double take on, understand there is a shadow, attracts attention, light cubes: same as interaction, where different cubes and colours are placed, walked on , different cubes change colours, as they move they become pink

f. From your list circle your favourite type of light on a card

g. Reflect: What did we learn?

6. Activity (draw / collage) : Shape.

a. What shapes do people like? Circles? Squares? Straight lines?

b. Why do you like them?

c. What is it that appeals to you about them?

d. Create a 2D version of your shape using straight lines using paper, scissors and masking tape.

e. Put your shape next to the shape you think looks good together

f. Draw multiple copies of your shape positioning them so the sum of the parts is greater than the whole

g. Choose one other shape that someone else has selected (can't be the same as your shape), and use the shape along with your shape to create a new image using multiple copies)

h. Reflect: What did we learn?

i. CM: something natural, growth, something growing up,’

ii. CM: inspired by clouds, no straight lines, flowing, organic

iii. CM: human shape, humans attractive by humans, people. Circles: any organic shape, not straight lines feels more comfortable, organic more pleasing. Emotional response, if you use straight lines they’re more active, but round shapes are more inviting. Multiplicity could also help aiding feeling comfortable, circles, spheres

iv. CM: directing to site: boat wake, close to the water, leading close to the water, thought bubbles: someone thought they were rocks, representing the edge could be forming a stone like someone has been here, signpost. Thought bubbles: a place that evokes thinking, sharing thought bubbles with others, working part of a group, working on something that is bigger than the individual part. Shared vision, playing a role, this is what this place is about, people do their part

v. CM: simple linear shapes, tangram: they fit together in so many different ways. Often in puzzles.

vi. CM: love polkadots and stripes, not together, fabric drawn to, love Kara as works, abstract geometric, like silhouettes, organic dark and light, spots mostly has to do with spacing, irregular or overlapping in different sizes

vii. Cm: hypercube - like 4D shapes because they are imperviable, it looks complicated,

viii. CM: design geometry, when I teach, building blocks, dividing, adding, corner comes out: corner falls out, someone said Minecraft, Lego building blocks, when sketching, start with a Form like a square, rectangle or cylinder, before get to initial design phase, start with little squares on a page to break things down

7. Activity (card sorting): Colour.

a. What colours do you like (pick one), Why do you like this colour? What does it remind you of?

b. Organise the colours into a single order so that the colour you put down “goes with” the previous colour.

c. Put the colours into groups of 2 so that the colours complement each other

d. Reflect: What did we learn?

i. CM: like red during the day, more attracted to yellows, no red and black together , red and cyan: enjoy the jitter, opposite on colour wheel, get movement from, red and cyan are opposites, but they form movement, any simultaneous combination acts, dance

ii. CM: hot pink, purple, blue: flow got ether, bleed into each other, gradient

iii. CM: red and blue.

iv. Alex: red, sun rise and colours, bright colours, yellow and green: more calming than red and orange

v. CM: love blues and greens, Fluoro and bright colours, purple and green come up together, colours on cars look amazing: orange and purple come together,

vi. Cm: sunset and sunrise , orange and green: units,

vii. CM: like all colours, light to colour, soft colours, pastels , red is favourite colour, but not aggressive colour

8. Activity (bundle ideas)

a. Now select one light (it doesn't need to be yours), one shape and one colour and write it together

b. What is it about this combination that appeals to you?

c. Repeat

d. Reflect: What did we learn?

9. Focus: project plan.

What are we going to do next 2 workshops?

10. Homework:

Post up some photographs of light installations, lamps, colour and shape that you think is inspiring onto our Slack page. This will become our visual diary over the next few weeks and allow us to keep us focused.

11. IDEO: Design

Post workshop:

1. Download the learnings

The Plan (what Emma Che observed)

1. Introductions around the table (name and craziest project you have worked on)

2. Around the table describe your journey to The Edge tonight. Share anything that stood out.

3. On sticky notes write down what you find interesting about light

4. Nathen to talk to each one and drill down a little with each persons idea and ask why

5. What shapes do you like?

6. Share back into the group and drill down again into them

7. What colours do you like and which ones do you like together

8. Mention the slack group and that notes will be written up there. Set homework of posting favourite light installations to the group.

(this process followed a human centre design process from Ideo https://www.ideou.com/pages/design-thinking

Reflection

There were 8 people in attendance. Everyone engaged throughout the session. There were many similar ideas that emerged during the process.

Photos

Evaluation

Pre

10 participants signed up online

Community Development

40 % of sign ups feel somewhat connected to The Edge community

60% of participants have been coming to the edge for over 12 months

90% came to the design session as they are interested in design.

Post:

9 people attended (2 English as a second language, 5 women, 4 men)

Community Development

Do you feel connected to The Edge community?

Cultural participation

Did you feel engaged by the design session?

Community Development

Did you have a conversation with someone new?

Accessing Resources

very much felt the book club was inclusive

Idea building

had new ideas