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Finding Your Way – A Breakout Session and Discussion about Wayfinding, Design and Learning from Those with Vision Loss (breakout presentation)
Abstracts / Journal of Transport & Health 7 (2017) S4–S87
S75
Aim: My research examines the tension between original design and use in Ostrava's socialist-designed neighbourhoods. Following the premise that how people interact with the urban spaces they inhabit is inextricably intertwined with each individual's specific movements, memories, affective experiences, interactions with others, as well as with the materiality of the spaces themselves, I was especially interested in local residents' visceral experiences of inhabiting spaces originally designed to promote socialist progress. Method: In addition to semi-structured sit-down interviews, I conducted walk-along interviews with some of my 50 informants as part of an 18-month ethnographic study in Ostrava. The walk-along interviews were video recorded, so that it was possible to later analyze how the informants moved through their environment and what gestures they used when interacting with their surroundings. Results: Most long-term residents had developed intimate relationships with their neighbourhood and paid little attention to the ideological intentions behind the design. Incorporating walking with sit-down interviews enabled me to collect richer data that went beyond the verbal and the visual by combining both. The walk-along interviews gave access to aspects of the lived experience harder to address in a standard interview, such as spatial practices, locally situated biographies, and sensory memories. Conclusions: Ostrava's socialist-designed spaces are used and experienced in ways that often contradict the original intents of the planners. Sensory experiences play an important role in people's interaction with the built environment, and these embodied interactions contribute to how public spaces are co-constructed, appropriated, and made familiar. Walking can be an effective method in examining the intimate relationship between people and built space. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jth.2017.11.121
Finding Your Way – A Breakout Session and Discussion about Wayfinding, Design and Learning from Those with Vision Loss (breakout presentation) Lisa Konopski 1, Lee Giddens 1, Karen Love 2 1 2
Urban Systems, Canada Canadian National Institute for the Blind
Background: Our presentation will raise awareness of what life is like for the thousands of Canadians who live with vision loss. We will discuss the basic concepts of wayfinding and universal accessibility, and how these notions relate to partially sighted individuals. Urban Systems has partnered with the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) for this presentation to promote awareness and share the experience of the blind and partially sighted as they find their way through public and private infrastructure. Description of Program: Urban Systems will discuss how ideas of wayfinding and accessibility influence our work as Landscape Architects, Environmental Designers and Urban Planners, and share local examples from environments that we design and encounter on a daily basis. We see the potential to explore concepts of wayfinding as a tool to navigate our pedestrian environment and how it can be adapted and designed to serve a broader community regardless of adversity. CNIB will discuss different levels of visual impairment and how the built environment affects the blind and partially sighted. To those with vision loss, walking can be equated with freedom. An Orientation and Mobility instructor from CNIB will discuss some of the issues and concerns that visually impaired people experience as they navigate through the built environment, as well as models to increase access. Outcomes: Urban Systems and CNIB will share specific examples of everyday design elements that pose challenges and opportunities for those with vision loss. We will discuss how simple design changes or products can improve these challenges. Our team will also share examples where designers and CNIB have collaborated on inclusive projects, such as the CNIB Scent Garden, and the CNIB Sensory Playground. Our breakout session will conclude with a discussion to explore successful elements, lessons learned and potential considerations for the future to make the public realm and wayfinding elements accessible, diverse and useful to the communities they serve. Implications: Through a shared discussion of experiences, participants will learn and converse. The intent is that all will leave with an awareness of how design decisions related to wayfinding and accessibility within the pedestrian environment affect people of all abilities and mobilities. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jth.2017.11.122
S75
Aim: My research examines the tension between original design and use in Ostrava's socialist-designed neighbourhoods. Following the premise that how people interact with the urban spaces they inhabit is inextricably intertwined with each individual's specific movements, memories, affective experiences, interactions with others, as well as with the materiality of the spaces themselves, I was especially interested in local residents' visceral experiences of inhabiting spaces originally designed to promote socialist progress. Method: In addition to semi-structured sit-down interviews, I conducted walk-along interviews with some of my 50 informants as part of an 18-month ethnographic study in Ostrava. The walk-along interviews were video recorded, so that it was possible to later analyze how the informants moved through their environment and what gestures they used when interacting with their surroundings. Results: Most long-term residents had developed intimate relationships with their neighbourhood and paid little attention to the ideological intentions behind the design. Incorporating walking with sit-down interviews enabled me to collect richer data that went beyond the verbal and the visual by combining both. The walk-along interviews gave access to aspects of the lived experience harder to address in a standard interview, such as spatial practices, locally situated biographies, and sensory memories. Conclusions: Ostrava's socialist-designed spaces are used and experienced in ways that often contradict the original intents of the planners. Sensory experiences play an important role in people's interaction with the built environment, and these embodied interactions contribute to how public spaces are co-constructed, appropriated, and made familiar. Walking can be an effective method in examining the intimate relationship between people and built space. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jth.2017.11.121
Finding Your Way – A Breakout Session and Discussion about Wayfinding, Design and Learning from Those with Vision Loss (breakout presentation) Lisa Konopski 1, Lee Giddens 1, Karen Love 2 1 2
Urban Systems, Canada Canadian National Institute for the Blind
Background: Our presentation will raise awareness of what life is like for the thousands of Canadians who live with vision loss. We will discuss the basic concepts of wayfinding and universal accessibility, and how these notions relate to partially sighted individuals. Urban Systems has partnered with the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) for this presentation to promote awareness and share the experience of the blind and partially sighted as they find their way through public and private infrastructure. Description of Program: Urban Systems will discuss how ideas of wayfinding and accessibility influence our work as Landscape Architects, Environmental Designers and Urban Planners, and share local examples from environments that we design and encounter on a daily basis. We see the potential to explore concepts of wayfinding as a tool to navigate our pedestrian environment and how it can be adapted and designed to serve a broader community regardless of adversity. CNIB will discuss different levels of visual impairment and how the built environment affects the blind and partially sighted. To those with vision loss, walking can be equated with freedom. An Orientation and Mobility instructor from CNIB will discuss some of the issues and concerns that visually impaired people experience as they navigate through the built environment, as well as models to increase access. Outcomes: Urban Systems and CNIB will share specific examples of everyday design elements that pose challenges and opportunities for those with vision loss. We will discuss how simple design changes or products can improve these challenges. Our team will also share examples where designers and CNIB have collaborated on inclusive projects, such as the CNIB Scent Garden, and the CNIB Sensory Playground. Our breakout session will conclude with a discussion to explore successful elements, lessons learned and potential considerations for the future to make the public realm and wayfinding elements accessible, diverse and useful to the communities they serve. Implications: Through a shared discussion of experiences, participants will learn and converse. The intent is that all will leave with an awareness of how design decisions related to wayfinding and accessibility within the pedestrian environment affect people of all abilities and mobilities. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jth.2017.11.122