We Carry What
We Are
How can we bring strangers together in an interactive, visually significant, and mobile way? Given the design constraint of using a platform truck to create an experience for city users, I designed an operable meeting space where city strangers can get to know each other by sharing stories about an item on their body. Through this design, I sought to design an object solely as a means for an experience, mixing spatial design, product design and performance.
Setting: ENDS Studio 401, UBC SALA (Academic)
Year: Spring 2021
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, CANADA
Diagram demonstrating the sequence of steps used to deploy the mobile meeting space
I designed this project in my final design studio, where we were asked to adapt a platform truck into an object for people in the city to interact with. My design sought to approach this challenge as a way to make "something" that would push for people to interact with each other. The result is a mobile booth that invites users to engage with a stranger by sharing something on their person for the other to see.
These are the original sketches I made when working on this design idea. This processed helped me work through and consolidate all the ideas I had.
Plans and axonometric views of my project proposal showcasing different elements of the modified platform truck.
The keystone element to the design was creating a space for people to come together, and a medium for people to start a conversation. My proposed solution to the medium was to have two lockable boxes with an acrylic top for people to put in an object (fun key chain, picture, pebble, or bracelet) that can be slid into the other person's side for them to see.
For added safety, each person cannot access the object on the other person's side, they can only see it. My idea is that we all carry items that say something about us, and that this can be a way to start a conversation with someone who's meeting us for the first time.
Top: Diagrams showcasing the mechanism of the sliding lock box with an acrylic top that allows people to show a stranger a meaningful item.
Bottom: Diagram showcasing the front view of the polychromic screen that transforms as heat from sustained conversation inside the booth between strangers continues.
To visualize the experience, I also designed a black polychromic screen that reacts to body temperature in the enclosed space, from the breath of people speaking in front of it, and as thus it is a visual time-stamp of the duration of one's conversation. The more time spent in conversation, the more vivid the colors on the screen.
