In assignment two I looked at the chapter "The Power Of Context" and from this I chose to look more into the "Broken Windows Theory" and the rise and fall of crime rates. I focused more into how the environment of an area affects the crime rate and how new housing developments and estate clean-ups can cause a decrease in these rates. For this assignment I have furthered my research into this topic and have found books, journals and websites that relate particularly well to my topic.
Colquhoun, I. (2004) Design Out Crime: Creating Safe and Sustainable Communities.
Ian Colquhoun speaks about how the public's concern about crime is at its highest and he approaches this subject throughout his book. He looks into the design and management of the urban environment in residential areas.
Crouch, S., Shaftoe, H. and Fleming, R. (1998) Design For Secure Residential Environments. United Kingdom: Pearson Education Limited.
This book looks into how the risk of crime can be reduced through sensible design of houses, community buildings and small commercial premises and the environment immediately surrounding the buildings.
Ganman, L. and Pascoe, T. (2004) "Seeing Is Believing, Crime Prevention and Community Safety". An International Journal.
In this journal Ganman and Pascoe also look into how design can prevent crime. They look at how maybe even though something is designed and works to prevent crime it can cause people to fear crime more. They believe that how things look can also create a negative aesthetic in some contexts.
Glenday, J. (2010) "Ghettos Blasted, Ghetto Concerto". Urban Realm (Summer Issue)
In this article John Glenday refers to founder of Urban Eye, Miles Watson's campaign to revive downtrodden streets with considered scaleable interventions. Watson talks about how certain areas are becoming so bad that people would rather take cabs than walk through their town. Also that we need to address the issue of where the line can be drawn between graffiti and vandalism. He also mentions the idea of the "Broken Windows Theory" which helps to tie in this article and my topic quite well.
Glenday, J, (2010) "All Hail Polphail, Rural Decay". Urban Realm (Summer Issue)
Glenday looks into how graffiti can be seen positively rather than negatively. That it can also be seen as a piece of art. He talks about an old derelict, ghost town of a village attracted talented enthusiasts that brought life to the place. The rotting canvas has liberated the creative impulses of artists who have infused their personality onto a forgotten landscape and have added some culture to it.
http://www.designagainstcrime.com. 15 November 2010.
This website not only has examples of how design can help prevent crime in a large sense but in a smaller sense too. It provides designs by many different artists working together. Some examples of the pieces found on this website are, the Grippa design for tables in coffee shops and bars. These are hooks that will be attached to under the table which hold your bag, making it harder for it to be stolen. There is also the Bikeoff Secure Bike Parking Stands which encourage people to lock up their bikes frame and both wheels. It also provides support for the bicycle to stand against.
http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/About/Publications/Documents/DACBrochure.pdf 17 November 2010.
This is a brochure that has more examples of products that have been produced to help prevent crime. It includes some of the designs that are shown in the design against crime website I have also looked at but in this brochure it goes into more detail and has more information about the designs.
As a part of assigment two we were also asked to look at ten websites of our choice. We could choose anything we wanted as long as five were related to textiles in some way or another and the other five could be to do with anything else that we found interesting. I found some pretty interesting websites for my textiles five, I will definitely be using them a lot more in the future. For the other five I chose some basic news websites that have information from all over the world.
TEXTILES
NEWS
Tuesday 23 November 2010
Sunday 7 November 2010
Assignment 2b: Discussion / 2c: Thinking
I met up with my brainstorming group for lunch today to begin our discussion about the ideas we came up with last week. We looked into more detail about how the power of context related to design in a number of ways. I had chosen to look more into detail at the "Broken Windows Theory" and how it could be pursued. I thought about how this theory is used around us in the world today, that it just isn't used within the subways but all over the place.
Back home where I live there is lots of housing estate developments happening. The "Broken Windows Theory" is all around us and we just dont notice it. The cleaning up of urban areas is making places a lot nicer to live in. Where I live now used to be an old school that had been shut down for many years. They demolished it all and now there is a large housing estate. They have also now knocked down the high rise flats nearby and are in the process of building new houses just across the road. Where I live was once referred to as scummy and not a very nice place to live but its moving up. It's attracting more and more people to live there.
Below I have hopefully summarised all of my thought processes throughout this assignment into a poster. One that shows how my specified chapter "The Power of Context" relates to design.
Back home where I live there is lots of housing estate developments happening. The "Broken Windows Theory" is all around us and we just dont notice it. The cleaning up of urban areas is making places a lot nicer to live in. Where I live now used to be an old school that had been shut down for many years. They demolished it all and now there is a large housing estate. They have also now knocked down the high rise flats nearby and are in the process of building new houses just across the road. Where I live was once referred to as scummy and not a very nice place to live but its moving up. It's attracting more and more people to live there.
Below I have hopefully summarised all of my thought processes throughout this assignment into a poster. One that shows how my specified chapter "The Power of Context" relates to design.
Friday 5 November 2010
Assignment 2a: Brainstorming.
For the first part of our second assignment we were to have a brainstorming session. So thats what we did last friday. During this time we looked at the chapter we chose as our detailed part of our mindmap in assignment one. We discussed the ways in which design relates to our Tipping Point chapter, for me this was The Power Of Context. Here are a few photos from my groups brainstorming session.
Make Things Make Sense.
In today's lecture we had a guest speaker, Hazel White. She spoke about jewellery design, how she personally went about her projects and other designers and their work. There was a particular piece of hers that I found really interesting. It was the "Hamefarers Kist".
This particular piece was developed after Hazel came back from a visit to Shetland. It was a piece that incorporated both technology and beautiful handcrafted objects.An iPhone was integrated into the box and rfid technology embedded into small knitted cushions. So when the cushions passed in front of the iPhone photos were shown up on the screen. Another great thing about this piece was that each cushion in the box could relate to a different person, therefore showing different photos and memories. It is said that it is like a more modern type of memory box.
I think the "Hamefarers Kist" is an amazing piece because it is so easy to use. Older and younger people can both use it as its so basic. The iPhone embedded in the box is also a single use device which means people wont get distracted with emailing, texting or calling others, it is focused on only the photos on-screen and the memories held within each photo.
Video of the "Hamefarers Kist".
This particular piece was developed after Hazel came back from a visit to Shetland. It was a piece that incorporated both technology and beautiful handcrafted objects.An iPhone was integrated into the box and rfid technology embedded into small knitted cushions. So when the cushions passed in front of the iPhone photos were shown up on the screen. Another great thing about this piece was that each cushion in the box could relate to a different person, therefore showing different photos and memories. It is said that it is like a more modern type of memory box.
I think the "Hamefarers Kist" is an amazing piece because it is so easy to use. Older and younger people can both use it as its so basic. The iPhone embedded in the box is also a single use device which means people wont get distracted with emailing, texting or calling others, it is focused on only the photos on-screen and the memories held within each photo.
Video of the "Hamefarers Kist".
Monday 1 November 2010
The Luck Factor.
I decided to do a little research into the whole lucky/unlucky part of last Friday's lecture. I found a book called "The Luck Factor" by Dr. Richard Wiseman online and I found what he was saying very interesting. He looks at the power of luck and investigates how our lives are affected by it. This research revealed that there was four main differences between lucky and unlucky people, these are;
1. Lucky people consistently encounter chance opportunities and meet people who have a very beneficial effect on their lives. In contrast unlucky people rarely have these sorts of experiences or they meet people that have a negative effect on their lives.
2. Lucky people make good decisions without knowing why. Unlucky people’s decisions tend to
result in failure and despair.
3. Lucky people's dreams, ambitions and goals have an uncanny knack of coming true. Unlucky people are the exact opposite.
4. Lucky people have an ability to turn their bad luck into good fortune. Unlucky people lack this ability and their bad luck causes nothing but upset and ruin.
He then concentrated his research efforts on understanding the different ways in which lucky and unlucky people thought and behaved. He asked the question - "Do lucky and unlucky people approach life in the same way, and if not, were different viewpoints responsible for creating the positive and negative events in their lives?" He came up with four principles in the way in which lucky people think.
The first principle is "Make Your Luck". He found that lucky people create, notice and act upon the chance opportunities in their lives, they also aim to build and maintain a strong "network of luck". Lucky people also have a relaxed attitude toward life and are open to new experiences.
The second principle is "Your Gut Is Right". This is all about how lucky people make successful decisions by using their intuitions and gut feelings. They also take steps to boost their intuition.
The third is "Expect The Good". This principle is about how their expectations about their future help them to fulfil their dreams. Lucky people also expect their good luck to continue in the future and attempt to achieve goals even if their chances of success seem slim.
And lastly the fourth principle is "Fix Your Luck". Wiseman believed that lucky people are able to transform their bad luck into good fortune and they can even see the positive side of their good luck.
I found all this extremely interesting as it just shows just by the way in which a person is thinking can alter how lucky or unlucky that person is. So in reality someone could create their own luck. Just by taking a few simple steps someone could bring luck into their life bit by bit.
Luck is only believing you're lucky.
1. Lucky people consistently encounter chance opportunities and meet people who have a very beneficial effect on their lives. In contrast unlucky people rarely have these sorts of experiences or they meet people that have a negative effect on their lives.
2. Lucky people make good decisions without knowing why. Unlucky people’s decisions tend to
result in failure and despair.
3. Lucky people's dreams, ambitions and goals have an uncanny knack of coming true. Unlucky people are the exact opposite.
4. Lucky people have an ability to turn their bad luck into good fortune. Unlucky people lack this ability and their bad luck causes nothing but upset and ruin.
He then concentrated his research efforts on understanding the different ways in which lucky and unlucky people thought and behaved. He asked the question - "Do lucky and unlucky people approach life in the same way, and if not, were different viewpoints responsible for creating the positive and negative events in their lives?" He came up with four principles in the way in which lucky people think.
The first principle is "Make Your Luck". He found that lucky people create, notice and act upon the chance opportunities in their lives, they also aim to build and maintain a strong "network of luck". Lucky people also have a relaxed attitude toward life and are open to new experiences.
The second principle is "Your Gut Is Right". This is all about how lucky people make successful decisions by using their intuitions and gut feelings. They also take steps to boost their intuition.
The third is "Expect The Good". This principle is about how their expectations about their future help them to fulfil their dreams. Lucky people also expect their good luck to continue in the future and attempt to achieve goals even if their chances of success seem slim.
And lastly the fourth principle is "Fix Your Luck". Wiseman believed that lucky people are able to transform their bad luck into good fortune and they can even see the positive side of their good luck.
I found all this extremely interesting as it just shows just by the way in which a person is thinking can alter how lucky or unlucky that person is. So in reality someone could create their own luck. Just by taking a few simple steps someone could bring luck into their life bit by bit.
Luck is only believing you're lucky.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)