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Projects

Communal Ecologies

An interactive experiment for participants to configure a model of their ideal public natural space, using the base and components we made.
Justice Equality and MisinformationInclusivitySpacesIdentity

We created a roughly 40cm^2 model, which allowed us and our participants to explore how public natural spaces (such as parks) could provide more equal access and meaningful interactions for users (especially marginalised groups, such as POC/BAME and LGBTQIA+ people) and thereby bring to these communities the social, mental, and physical benefits they are often denied.

This was a research-led project, informed by medical and sociological studies demonstrating the benefits of access to nature and the fact that queer and POC people disproportionately lack access to nature in the UK. We utilised sensory information and physical experiences of natural spaces to inform the model's design, such as through foraging for materials in and around London parks.

We presented the model to 12 members of the RCA community (including several queer and POC/BAME people), inviting them to co-create the model (by affixing found natural materials and instilling sounds and smells into the model). This provided participants with an opportunity to explore how public green spaces could be designed according to their preferences (imagining that their model might one day be reproduced on a 1:1 scale), as well as providing them with tactile experiences of nature immediately through interacting with our foraged materials. We photographically documented the model (not the participant, so as to maintain anonymity) after each interaction and noted down each participant’s interpretations of their process, thereby allowing us to analyse how our ecological model was communally shaped.

Implementations of our study can obtain valuable insights into people’s preferences for designing natural landscapes, particularly in terms of what would better suit those conventionally marginalised from urban green spaces. For example, our analyses of our small sample size suggest that non-POC/BAME and non-LGBTQIA+ people have a tendency towards minimalism, uniformity and perilous excitement which is not shared by POC/BAME and LGBTQIA+ individuals. Moreover, all our LGBTQIA+ and POC/BAME participants’ models were permeated with notions of accessible transport, community connection and diversity of colour and species.

Perhaps further iterations of this study will similarly find that the design preferences of non-marginalised individuals towards cleanliness and potential danger (somewhat akin to a well-functioning rollercoaster park) would exclude marginalised individuals, who seem to find peace in diversity and safety, rather than seeking excitement in uniform thrills. Perhaps, instead, future studies might find participants’ responses lead researchers to draw entirely different conclusions. We invite practitioners across the globe to take up this mantle, attempting this study themselves, sharing their findings and thus furthering our initiative to use co-creative design to challenge the marginalisation of certain identities from public natural spaces.

Foraged Wood spread out.
Wooden foragings from Hyde Park
Leaves taped to twig
Making the miniature trees from tape, as well as foraged leaves and twigs
Painted elements spread out.
Painting the miniature trees and wooden symbols
Clamped model, while glue dries.
Carving and gluing together the pyrofoam and wooden parts of the base
Cas is using a sander to shape the curves of the base.
Sanding the outline of the base
Margo sanding the top of the base
Shaping the topography of the base through sanding
Base on tissue paper, having been painted green
Painting the base
Several tables set up in the photography studio, on which are the model and spread out components that participants could add.
Two tables for painting/glueing components and two platforms for the model and for storin completed components
Lighting set-up, with two big lights
Lighting set-up
Painting a wooden mushroom symbol.
Cas demonstrating how participants could paint our wooden symbols and glue them to toothpicks, ready to be fixed on model
Cas demonstrating how participants could add components to the model
Model with elements added.
Participant 1 - neither LGBTQIA+ nor POC/BAME
Model with elements added.
Participant 2 - neither LGBTQIA+ nor POC/BAME
Model with elements added.
Participant 3 - both LGBTQIA+ and POC/BAME
Model with elements added.
Participant 4 - both LGBTQIA+ and POC/BAME
Model with elements added.
Participant 5 - both LGBTQIA+ and POC/BAME
Model with elements added.
Participant 6 - neither LGBTQIA+ nor POC/BAME
Model with elements added.
Participant 7 - POC/BAME but not LGBTQIA+
Model with elements added.
Participant 8 - LGBTQIA+ but not POC/BAME
Model with elements added.
Participant 9 - POC/BAME but not LGBTQIA+
Model with elements added.
Participant 10 - LGBTQIA+ but not POC/BAME
Model with elements added.
Participant 11 - POC/BAME but not LGBTQIA
Model with elements added.
Participant 12 - LGBTQIA+ but not POC/BAME