Design for a shift

Design For a Shift

A design strategy that explores shared ownership in the NYC affordable housing system to help the local government understand the value of social design.

Parsons School of Design l School of Design Strategies MFA Transdisciplinary Design l Thesis 2015 l Dongin Shin

DESIGN FOR A SHIFT

I am a designer and a visionary. I believe that a designer’s capacity for envisioning futures and the ability to bring it into reality is important and unique. What areas can designers go to with the power of envisioning?

In recent years, a designer’s territory has expanded to areas such as business, education, city planning and more. A designer’s ability to think outside of the box especially brings new perspectives to the problem spaces that designers are called for as creative problem solvers. However, we as designers need to expands our ideas more widely into areas of economics and politics.

Design is already political in that it decides how people live, eat and communicate. It has the potential to change the way we think and consume. The income inequality in America has been growing larger since the great recession in 20081. Also changes in economics have begun to happen as a result of the sharing economy and many alternative economies are emerging everywhere. It is clear that changes in economics are needed for an alternative future.

The numbers might not favor designers but we can bring about changes in many different ways. Through critical thinking in complex economics, designers can find a leverage point to intervene and produce a picture of the new future. I believe that designers can make impossible dreams become possible and feasible for people. This ability to make people to dream together will lead to a paradigm shift.

1 Saez, Emmanuel, and Gabriel Zucman. “Exploding Wealth Inequality in the United States.” (2014). Washington Center for Equitable Growth. Web. http://d3b0lhre2rgreb.cloudfront.net/ms-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/10/102014-wealthbrief.pdf.

ABSTRACT

My friend, Ragnhild, visited me in NYC from Sweden in the summer of 2014. She asked for my address to see if she could find an accommodation near my house. I live in Park Slope, Brooklyn which is a quiet family oriented residential area and hotels are not an option. She booked a house just two blocks away from my house through Airbnb.

Photo courtesy of airbnb.com

Airbnb is one of the best known sharing economy platforms. It is platform in which people can host guests into their own home to sleep. This sharing economy has changed the way we consume goods and the way we work. Sharing a home has become a new income revenue along with sharing a car, a cloth, a skill and more. It enables individuals like you and me to become entrepreneurs. This creates a positive impact in ways such as empowering a bottom up economy, changing consumerism and a new generation of access over owning. However, at the same time, there are elements that need to be addressed before it changes our life more permanently.

In this thesis, I focus on two points. The first point is ownership in the sharing economy. The sharing economy only enables a sharing of access. The owner has the power of deciding who gets access and who accumulates the wealth in the sharing economy. The second point is the role of the government in the sharing economy. The lack of regulation is being discussed everywhere yet the role of government as a service provider is something that could learn from the sharing economy and apply it to public services. I provide design criteria to create a shared ownership which has been drawn from a learning of cooperatives.

I demonstrate how design criteria for shared ownership could be used in the design strategy of public services in the context of NYC affordable housing, My Micro NY. This provides a future scenario where residents of My Micro NY could experience shared ownership of a kitchen as a community. This case study proposes design as a capacity to create a new housing policy that enlarges the designer’s role from a problem solver to visionary who paints alternative futures.

Design For a Shift crafts a new culture of ownership through shifting our understanding of housing system. This encompasses the socioeconomy, food systems and housing systems. If design can create a culture, design could become political and change ways to live and eat for the better.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Design for a shift Abstract PART 1 INTRODUCTION

Food and Sharing

PART 2 BA C KG RO U N D

Design with Food The Food System The Sharing Economy Potential in Public Service

PART 3 CASE STUDY

Change in Housing System Analysis of precedent study Experimental Analysis Proposed Application Design Iteration

14

18 20 24 31

34 42 50 58 72

PART 4 IMPLICATION

Assessment Reflection

PART 5 CONCLUSION

Conclusion

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

84 86

90 94

PART 1 INTRODUCTION

FOOD AND SHARING

Food is a primary element of sharing. It is a natural element that people share with one another.

In a family, sharing food is seen between mothers and their children through lactation during infancy. Parents also provision their children until adulthood. Moreover, sharing food between parents and their children continues both ways until death in most traditional non-market societies.

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Photo courtesy of North Carolina State University Libraries Special Collections Research Center

Sharing food also involves friends and other individuals. For example, in Asian cuisine, a dish commonly known as a hot pot is an example of a meal that people share from one pot. A BBQ is also a source of shared food and creates the experience of eating together.

The sharing of food is so universal that it is largely taken for

granted. In the last couple of years, sharing food has become an economic venue through the sharing economy.

Before a discussion about the sharing economy, it is important to understand exactly what sharing is.

Shear1 /SHir/

Verb 1. Cut the wool off (a sheep or other animal).

Cut off (something such as hair, wool, or grass), with scissors or shears.

“I’ll shear off all that fleece” Have something cut off.

“they were shorn of their hair” 2.Break off or cause to break off, owing to a structural strain.

“the derailleur sheared and jammed in the rear wheel” Noun A strain in the structure of a substance produced by pressure, when its layers are laterally shifted in relation to each other.

The word Sharing originated from German word Shear. According to The Oxford American College Dictionary, shear means to cut off part of an animal. This has developed into the word sharing.

The dictionary description indicates that sharing involves dividing a part of something and giving it to others. In other words, sharing is giving up full ownership of something with the intention of dividing it into pieces for others.

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1 The Oxford American College Dictionary. Indexed ed. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 0. 1696. Print.

My personal experience in Kibbutz, Israel, an intentional community in Northern Europe, has made me interesting in knowing how the sharing economy can make an impact in our way of living in regards to food systems. How might design play a role here?

This is the reason why my research is focused around the sharing economy and food systems.

DESIGN WITH FOOD

I was inspired to design with food for two reasons. The first reason is the book titled Eating Together by Alice Julier. Alice is an associate professor and the director of the graduate program in food studies in the School of Sustainability and the Environment at Chatham University. She writes that eating together reduces people’s perceptions of inequality and that diners tend to view those of different races, genders, and socioeconomic backgrounds more equal than they would in other social scenarios. I was fascinated to design eating together in socially conflicted situations.

Secondly, my personal cultural background affected me to think about designing with food. In South Korea, my home country, food is a great tool to build an intimate relationship. They ask “have you eaten?” as a greeting. The meaning of asking this is not just to check whether somebody has eaten a meal or not. It is their way of saying “if you haven’t eaten yet then let’s eat together.” It is said with the intention of building a potential intimate relationship.

To design with food, I worked closely with Fabio Parasecoli, an Associate Professor in Food Studies Program, The Schools of Public Engagement at The New School. With his advice, I studied to understand the development of the modern day kitchen by exploring the history of the domestic kitchen and the changes of the kitchen in house architecture.

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Also, I researched different factors in food systems to analyze the relationship between sharing and food systems and how sharing impacts and changes food systems.

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THE FOOD SYSTEM

DIRECT IMPACT FROM TECHNOLOGY IN KITCHEN

Advancements in technology have had a huge impact in the development of the modern kitchen.1 The kitchen was at one time separated from the main building of the house due to the of use of an open fire for cooking and because of class differences. At that time many people had servants who worked and slept inside of the kitchen. It was only during the first industrial revolution in the 18th century that the technological advances of iron stoves placed the kitchen back into the main building. During this time, wealthy houses still had separated kitchens. The kitchen was often in a basement while living rooms were above ground. The exception was tenement buildings in larger cities such as New York. Due to the density of the city, these multi household building’s kitchens had the multi purpose of being a bed room, living room and bathroom.

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Photo courtesy of emilycontois.com

1 This section is written based on Cromley, Elizabeth C. The Food Axis: Cooking, Eating, and the Architecture of American Houses.

Charlottesville: U of Virginia, 2010. Print.

Through World War Two, the urban middle class began to appear.

By this time, gas was distributed in such a way that wood and coal were no longer needed for cooking and thus the kitchen did not have to deal with smoke. This led to a combined living room, dining room and kitchen into one place.

In the early 20th century, the rationalization of the working woman led to the movement of an efficient cooking processes. This made the kitchen unit become separate from living spaces again, and the communal kitchen had become a big movement among feminists.

During the 20th century, the technology of the world had a large impact on the space and function of the kitchen. Through the introduction of the “Swedish kitchen” (Svensk köksstandard, Swedish kitchen standard) storage units became part of the kitchen.

Furthermore, a wide distribution of electricity, water provision and sewers made cooking much easier and simpler and thus the kitchen became a cleaner space. This led to the emergence of dining and cooking in one kitchen. In 1980’s, the creation of the extractor hood allowed an open kitchen to become possible and this changed perception of cooking. Instead of hard labor, cooking became a social act that people could enjoy with their guest while they are cooking. It also came to be seen as a stage for cooking performances in which people could show their creative work.

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In today’s world, the kitchen is used for everything. The questionnaires I conducted with friends show that they study, chat, snack and meditate in the kitchen in addition to cooking and dining.

Yet, the answers varied and depended on their kitchen conditions.

People with decent sized separated kitchens answered that they performed more activities in the kitchen. People who lived in smaller studio type housing in which the kitchen units are small and part of the bedroom did not do many activities in their kitchen and food related activities occurred less often than other groups of people.

IMPACT FROM CHANGE OF PERCEPTION OF SHARING TO ENTIRE FOOD SYSTEM The dramatic change of the kitchen from the 19th century to the 20th century occurred by a fast development of technologies.

However, the future of the kitchen now seems to be less affected by technology. Instead, the change of food systems as a whole through creation, distribution, production and the dining experience of food is being affected by perceptions of sharing.

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Through the Internet, the shared knowledge of food has helped people become more educated and aware of nutritional information. As a result of this, the transparency of food production and distribution has become high in demand. The collaborative consumption of food has become a common activity within food co-ops, farmers markets and CSA1 programs. Distribution within food systems has many middlemen such as brokers, transportation workers, and package companies, but this collaborative consumption cuts some of these middle steps in the distribution chain and helps customers gain more knowledge and power in the food they consume.

1 “Community Supported Agriculture.� http://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/pubs/csa/csa.shtml

Because of more active participation from consumers through a collaborative consumption of food, some people have become producers of food. For example, in the last couple of years, the action of growing your own food in areas such as community gardens, seed sharing and the indoor gardening has gained a lot of attention.

The system of the creation and distribution of food is changing through shared activities. This change shows that the kitchen is no longer just a place to cook and eat. It can also become a place to produce and distribute food.

Another change lies in the production and dining experiences. One of my personal experiences of the sharing economy was within a meal sharing platform Eat With. When a friend of mine visited New York City from South Korea the summer of 2013, she and I had dinner at a house that we had never been to before, owned by a person we had never met. I was nervous not knowing anything about this house, but at the same time I was excited. We were greeted at the door by Sara, who was both the owner of the house and the cook. We sat around the dinner table with three other people that we did not know. It was an interesting experience. Dinner had become more exciting yet also pleasing because of the social aspect of getting to know people and the coziness of being in a home. This type of shared cooking activity for myself and family members has extended to strangers.

Kitchen Surfing is a service which allows people to order a personal chef to cook inside their own home. Both of these cases involve going into someone else’s house to eat or going into someone else’s house to cook. This makes a home kitchen into a nice restaurant.

The domestic kitchen becomes a center of social activity.

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THE SHARING ECONOMY

DEFINITION AND LEADING FACTORS

In the last ten years, sharing has become a movement through the sharing economy. Actions of sharing that have been taken for granted such as preparing a bed for a guest, cooking a meal and giving a ride to the airport for a friend have now become a new source of income.

What is the definition of the sharing economy? I define the sharing economy as “an economic model based on sharing access to underutilized assets from spaces to skills to things for monetary or non-monetary benefits. It is currently largely discussed in relation to peer-to-peer marketplaces but equal opportunity lies in the business to consumer models.�

FLOOW2

KICKSTRATER

Business to Business

Zipcar Business to Consumer

Collaborative Finance

Collaborative Education

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SKILLSHARE

Collaborative Consumption

Collaborative Production

Eatwith Airbnb

Peer to Peer

Sharing Economy Peer Economy

Flickr

TechShop

Then what does it look like to be using the sharing economy? One example is Airbnb. This is a service in which people rent beds directly from each other and it is coordinated through the internet.

While it might seem like a bed and breakfast, instead people rent out their own home.

The sharing economy is a global phenomenon. Seoul, for example, is now a center of sharing.1 The city has become a hub for sharing.

Paris has become the annual home of the “OuiShare� fest2 where people gather to talk about different sharing activities. Last year, the government of Ecuador launched Buen Conocer3, an initiative to radically re-imagine the nation according to the principles of open sharing networks, open production, and an economy of the commons.

The reason why the sharing economy has spread so quickly is in large part because of the three factors: the economic reality, environmental pressure and a facilitation of technology. The diverse price range in goods, taking part in reducing the environmental impact and the social aspect of the service such as a reputation system has drawn much attention.

Economic Reality

Environmental Pressure

Facilitation of Technology

Sharing and peer-to-peer transactions are not a new thing. However, the distinct part of the sharing economy is the technology that it facilitates. It has reduced transaction costs, making sharing assets cheaper and easier. It has made it possible to scale up to a global level. Smartphones with a GPS can help people find the nearest rentable car; social networks provide a way to check up on people and build trust; and online payment systems make billing without an uncomfortable conversation possible.

2 OuiShare.Web. 18 Feb. 2015. http://ouishare.net/en.

3 Good Summit Meeting. Web. 14 Mar. 2015. http://cumbredelbuenconocer.ec/.

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1 Sharing Hub. Web. 5 Jan. 2015. http://sharehub.kr/.

THE POTENTIAL

What is it about the sharing economy that makes it such an attractive service? What are the benefits of the sharing economy?

It enables a bottom up economy, changes the behaviors of consumption which leads to a positive environmental impact, and it is crafting change in this generation.

EMPOWERING BOTTOM UP ECONOMY The sharing economy enables users to create their own economy.

This turns individuals into entrepreneurs. In Etsy, for example, custom goods are sold through a shared online market which enables small scale artisans to run a business without having to have their own store front. Also, people like you and me can provide goods or services and can create capital from it. For instance, if you are good at cleaning and organizing a kitchen you might find work at TaskRabit or you can post your offer in same platform. This is a shift from the traditional market in which corporations provide and you and I consume the provisions from the corporations.

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Since the providers in the sharing economy are not one or two corporations but rather are many individuals, it has a large range of goods, services and prices. Consumers reap the benefits because they get more options to accommodate their needs, and providers must now compete for quality and price of goods and services.

CHANGE OF CONSUMERISM The sharing economy forces people to reconsider the goods they dispose of. Because people are able to rent items through sharing economy platforms, they intensify the usage of goods. Also, people utilize goods that might otherwise go to landfills through renting or selling them in the sharing economy. This has slowly lead to a change in consumption behavior in which a small fraction of people have begun to buy higher quality items and rent them out according to research conducted by Arun Sundararajan and his students at

New York University.1 For example, I may by an eighty dollar dress, yet instead I buy a two hundred dollar dress. I do this because I know that after lending it four times, I can make average of one hundred twenty dollars on Style Lend that it would cover the extra money I spent and therefore I get to own higher quality clothing.

ACCESSIBILITY OVER OWNING The internet and cloud has helped us gain access easily without owning the items. One example of this is Spotify. In the past, people owned music tapes or CD to listen to music. Then they owned digital music through music labels or digital music platforms and digital music players such as iPod and smartphones. From this change, we have moved further to accessing music without owning the music itself. As a Spotify user it is not a very different experience from owning certain music labels and instead is much more economical and easy way to access it. Instead of buying and owning music I like, I could pay for unlimited access and listen to almost any music whenever or wherever I want. It is very normal to access music in this way to most of my generation and we don’t think about buying music unless there is a specific reason to do so.

This change in the approach toward listening to music demonstrates how we are starting to shift from the idea of owning to accessing.

This also applies to movie streaming services. Rather than buying a movie on a tangible format such as a Bluray disc, people now subscribe to services such as Netflix or Amazon Video that provide on demand streaming services for video productions. This provides larger options at lower prices.

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1 Sundararajan, Arun. “The Future of Workers in the Sharing Economy | Digital Labor: Sweatshops, Picket Lines, Barricades.” Digital Labor Conference. Vera List Center for Art and Politics, the 2014 Creative Time Summit, the Worker Institute at the ILR School (Cornell University), the Division Of Interdisciplinary Studies at the Center For Worker Education (City College of New York City), the Economics Department at UMass Amherst, the School of Media Studies and the program in Design + Technology at The New School, and the Yale Information Society Project (Yale University). Wollman Hall, The New School, New York. 15 Nov. 2014. Lecture.

THE CRITICISM

In the midst of a fast growing sharing economy, there are a few points to think about. Here I will only go through two points that are relevant to this thesis.

OWNERSHIP MATTERS MORE THAN EVER The sharing economy only enables the sharing of access. Nathan Schneider argues in his article on Shareable that ownership matters just as much as ever in the sharing economy.1 The owner decides who gets access and thus who accumulates wealth in the system.

The value of shared items is decided by the owners and this can lead to a problem of power dynamics in the sharing economy.

The owners have the power to share or not to share depending on their preferences. They could decline the service simply because they don’t like the person behind the request without any reason.

This also leads to problems of exclusion of minority groups within the sharing economy. The sharing economy has to change from a sharing of access to a sharing of ownership in order to enable a more equal sharing.

REGULATORY UNCERTAINTY The sharing economy lacks government involvement as a regulator.

This presents a problem of uncertain regulations. Companies like Airbnb serve as a technology company rather than an accommodation provider and they cannot be regulated under the same laws that hotels are. Below are details of problems caused in the sharing economy.

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USER SAFETY An Incidence in which an Uber driver raped a passenger in India and in the U.S. have become a big news story.2 However, because Uber is only a provider for a transaction between a driver and a

1 Schneider, Nathan. “Owning Is The New Sharing”. Shareable. 21 Dec. 2014. Web. 10 Mar. 2015. http://www.shareable. net/blog/owning-is-the-new-sharing.

2 Nuzzi, Olivia. “More Bad News for Uber: Driver Arrested in Los Angeles Rape Case”. The Daily Beast. 04 Jun. 2014.

Web. 25 March 2015. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/04/more-bad-news-for-uber-driver-arrested-in-los-angeles-rape-case.html.

passenger, they do not carry a responsibility for the safety of the passengers. If law enforcement wants to charge Uber with the current law system that applies to taxis, it would be no different than regulating Amazon for contents of the books they sell.

WORKERS VS. USERS The problem of the absence of regulation for this new model of businesses also applies to worker’s protection in the sharing economy.

Uber calls their drivers “micro-entrepreneurs” rather than drivers who work for them. The drivers are not employees of Uber but instead are categorized as freelancers. This means that the insurance of the driver, service charge rate and work time on this platform are also the driver’s responsibility. Uber also advertises a high rate of income for the drivers within their system, however in reality their income is similar to licensed taxis who are protected as employees of the city taxi system by law.1 Furthermore, because Uber drivers are freelancers, their income relies heavily on their availability. There is no sick pay, health care or pensions. Any personal issues that a driver would experience would directly affect the driver’s income. While Uber is disrupting and changing ways to work, tools to protect workers in this new form of business are very much needed.

1 Slee,Tom. “Why Canada should de-activate Uber.” Whimsley. 22 Nov. 2014. Web. 12 Mar. 2015. http://tomslee. net/2014/11/why-canada-should-de-activate-uber.html.

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TAXATION OF INCOME THROUGH PLATFORMS While worker’s protection is being discussed in the sharing economy, taxation around Airbnb is another issue. As Airbnb refers to both hosts and guests as users, in this system everyone is a user. Despite the fact that they make earnings through the platform, they are not employees of Airbnb. Because they are not categorized as employees, charging their income through this platform is a difficult issue. Although Airbnb is working to resolve this specific issue with different cities, the current regulation system that was built based on ownership makes it hard to pursue taxation for the earnings of Airbnb renters.

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HIGH RISING PRICES The absence of regulation also creates a high standard of pricing problems. For example, the skill based sharing economy platforms TaskRabbit and Zaarly have issues with rising prices of human necessity works.1 There is no regulation of the pricing on the sharing economy platforms; it runs as an auction system. The price of each list has been growing much higher than the average cost in a neighborhood. It needs a system for monitoring prices. The absence of the right regulation for this new form of business is creating many problems. This is not to say that it should not be regulated, only that in their current form, it is in need of a new regulation system for their unique business models.

1 Works that cannot be replaced by machines.

POTENTIAL IN PUBLIC SERVICE

REGULATOR + SERVICE PROVIDER

On the other hand, the government is a huge service provider. What if the government could adapt strategies of sharing ownership in providing a service? As a Transdisciplinary designer, this is a design opportunity.

I believe that it has the potential to change the understanding of ownership and ways that the government provide services.

Through this thesis, I am asking: How might we, as a designer, develop design strategies for a new public service that enables shared ownership?

A good example of an active role of the local government is the Sharing city, Seoul. They acknowledge the potential of sharing as the future of the economy and actively reform the city’s regulations to facilitate more sharing activities. They have also created public sharing services by using existing infrastructures such as underutilized public offices and schools. Through this action, the city of Seoul is supporting and co-creating sharing activities through “public-private cooperatives” to create a sustainable economy.

Photo courtesy of sharinghub.kr

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PART 2 CASE STUDY

CHANGE IN HOUSING SYSTEM NEW YORK CITY HOUSING The context of my thesis project is in New York City housing system.

People in New York City need housing that is affordable. In the rocketing price of real estate in New York City, housing is a large expense for every household. My close friend complained that every month, after paying the rent, she does not have anything left for leisure even though she is living in relatively low priced multi tenant housing with a decent marketing job.

“Between 2000 and 2012 median apartment rents in New York City rose by 75 percent, compared to 69 percent in the New York metropolitan area as a whole and 44 percent in the rest of the United States.”1 - Office of the Comptroller.

The need for housing in cities are growing even more into the future.

The UN predicts mass urbanization of the world in 2015. Increasing immigrants into the city2 and this predictions on growing population asks more affordable housing system for New York City.

The complexity of housing system includes a problems of disconnect between the type and size of available apartments and the housing demands of modern households. New York City’s growing population is largely single household that there are 1.9 million one- and twoperson households in the City. It is more than 60 percent of all the City’s households. At the same time, there are only 7 percent (1.25 million) studios and one-bedroom apartments. The demand for smaller units are high not only from single households but also who would prefer to form their own household. However, many individuals are forced to live with roommates or family by high rents for larger housing units.

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It is common in the City to live with more than one roommate to rent multi-bedroom apartments. This drive prices for those apartments out of reach for families with children. Also more than two adults for a house is not protected by the law as a tenants that it potentially put the person in danger.

1 Stringer, Scott M. “THE GROWING GAP: New York City’s Housing Affordability Challenge.” (2014). Office of the Comptroller. City of New York. Web. 3 Apr. 2015. http://comptroller.nyc.gov/wp-content/uploads/documents/Growing_ Gap.pdf.

2 Hollander, Sophia. “City Sees Wave of Newcomers: Sharp Jumps in Immigrants Arriving From Mexico and China.” The Wall Street Journal 18 Dec. 2013. Print.

11%

Single parent with Children Two or more Adults with Children Families without Children Singles

16%

40%

33%

Data Source: American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates (U.S. Census), 2012

Household Size 1 Person

2 Person

32%

3 Person

29%

17%

4 Person

5+ Person

12%

10%

Unit Type Studio 1 Bedrooms

7%

34%

2 Bedrooms

33%

3+ Bedrooms

26%

Data Source: Housing and Vacancy Survey (U.S. Census), 2011.

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Photo courtesy of NYT.com

Photo courtesy of NYC.gov

MICRO HOUSING In response to this, New York City is piloting Micro-housing which is smaller than 400 square feet. Before talking about New York’s Microhousing, I want to talk more about what micro-housing is.

Micro-housing is enlarging housing trend in America at the moment forced by cramped urban settings. Especially Tokyo and Paris began looking at downsizing apartments as early as 2007 and 2008 when the global number of urban dwellers first surpassed the rural population. This new housing concept is in peak, the micro-housing experiments breaking out from London1 to Poland2 to China3. The definition of micro-housing is yet to be set. In the current scene of micro-housing, creating more and more smaller livable house is in competition.

Each city has housing regulations such as minimum size of the house to be, what elements has to have such as toilet and kitchen, size of minimum window etc. For New York City, 400 square feet was the minimum unit size until 2012. During Michel Bloomberg regime, 1987 density restriction that requires all new apartments to be greater than 400 square feet has been exempt that the City became a first city to have no limitation on how small it can be.

In search for a micro-unit apartment building that would be developed into a new housing model for the “small household population”, the City held adAPT NYC competition. adAPT- a city-sponsored competition that challenged developer-led teams to design an innovative micro-apartment that responds to 21st century housing problems.

1 Allen, Kate. “Young Opt for Life in London Microhouses - FT.com.” Financial Times. Financial Times, 28 Dec. 2014.

Web. 8 Feb. 2015.

2 Reporter, Daily. “Perfect for a Size-zero Model: World’s Skinniest House Is Just Five Feet Across... and Barely Has Enough Room for a Kitchen.” Mail Online. Associated Newspapers, 19 Oct. 2012. Web. 8 Feb. 2015.

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3 “Hong Kong’s Shocking 40-Square-Foot Apartments Photographed by Chinese Human Rights Group.” Inhabitat Sustainable Design Innovation Eco Architecture Green Building Hong Kong Micro Apartments Comments. Web. 8 Mar. 2015.

MY MICRO NY The first NYC’s micro housing My Micro NY is my case study. This housing came out from a winner of adAPT NYC. It is sponsored by the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development.

Succeeding 33 international proposals and providing an innovative housing model for New York City’s micro-apartments, a team consisting of Monadnock Development LLC, Actors Fund Housing Development Corporation and nARCHITECTS was selected as winner of the adAPT NYC competition. Construction on the pilot project will began at the end of the year 2014 and residents are expected to move in by fall of 2015.

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This “My Micro NY” proposal is designed as a modular design that each module is prefabricated in a facility at the Brooklyn Navy Yards, and it is now started to stack up on the site in Kips Bay, Manhattan, on a piece of city-owned land. These housing units are in size range of 250-370 square feet. It is consist of 55 units and multiple shared spaces such as community room, gym and outdoor garden.

Photo courtesy of nycmayorsoffice

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MIXED INCOME HOUSING The My Micro NY is not only a micro housing but it is also a mixed income housing. Mixed income housing is part of a housing policy in the buildings in which the majority of apartments are set at a market rate, with set-asides, for low- and moderate-income New Yorkers. In return for including these units, developers can receive tax deduction, permission to construct larger buildings and bond financing.

My micro NY will have 40% of the housing under section 8. “Section8” is a common name for the Housing Choice Voucher Program, funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Through this program, 22 units will be at $950 per month while rest of units would charge at $3000. According to affordable housing regulations, Section 8 unit resident will have less than $28,400 annual income to be qualified.

However, when I calculate market rate resident’s annual income based on the idea that most landlord in NYC asks annual income to be 40 times of monthly income to apply for the rent, one have at least $120,000 annual income. Which is 5 times of difference in income level at smallest.

$950/month Annual Income= no more than $28,400

$3,000/month Annual Income= at least $120,000

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In these mixed income housings one repeatedly reported problem is the division of the two groups.1 The income difference creates an invisible

1 Satow, Julie. “Living in the Mix.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 30 Aug. 2014. Web. 13 Mar. 2015.

wall where the two groups do not mix. The market rate residents often get offended by the idea of different rent rate, complains about different lifestyle such as noise level and safety issues that might arise. The perception of market rate residents are in need for change, yet it is not easy to change just by mixing different income level people by housing regulations.

Unlike Public housing system by NYC Housing Authority, mixed income affordable housing system is multi-sector engagement program that the management of these apartments are on to private management companies after it’s built and they do not address this social issue.

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My insight is to develop design strategies for the New York City Housing Preservation and Development(HPD) to apply co-owned sharing service for My Micro NY that uses food as an element in solving the conflict of two different income level residents.

To develop the design strategies, I went through three phases. First, I analyzed cooperatives. To draw insights of elements that makes co-ownership successful or to fail. Through this precedent analysis, I developed design principles for the service design.

Second, I did multiple experiment analysis such as prototyping and visiting analogous system to test and iterate potential service design model. Last, I analyzed HPD and affordable housing system to find sweet spot that how the designed service design could be carried out.

ANALYSIS LEARNING FROM COOPERATIVES I studied cooperatives to learn about an alternative economy through a co-owned relationship. A cooperative is a type of ownership model that differs from most of the sharing economy markets. In the sharing economy market, items or skills are owned by one person that has ‘shared access’ as opposed to ‘shared ownership’. The owners create capital by utilizing their assets more intensely. In other words, they commercialize access to the item.

However in cooperatives, ownership is shared and thus access is equal.

Throughout history many different cooperatives have been attempted and yet many have failed. In the following paragraphs I will discuss the patterns of success within cooperatives.

• • •

OPERATING IN LOCAL SCALE BUILDING A STRONG COMMUNITY HAVING A SHARED VISION

The first well-known case is Mondragon in Spain.1 Mondragon is a corporation and Federation of Worker Cooperatives that was founded in 1956 in the Basque region in Spain. Mondragon is worker-owned, not worker-managed; it is part of the larger competitive market. It is involved in the areas of finance, retail, and education. Mondragon was founded out of Catholic education with solidarity and participation based humanism in businesses by the young Catholic priest José María Arizmendiarrieta through the years of 1941 to 1955. Through his teachings, Mondragon became one of the biggest worker cooperatives in the world.

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In Mondragon, the average general manager makes no more than five times more than the minimum wage paid in his or her cooperative. This is a much smaller wage gap than many other corporates.2 The wages also get decided through a voting system 1 Mondragon. Web. 15 Mar. 2015. http://www.mondragon-corporation.com/.

2 Velasco, Schuyler. “CEO vs. Worker Pay: 10 Companies with the Biggest Gaps.” The Christian Science Monitor. 12 Dec.

among the workers. This model helped the cooperatives survive through economic hardships. The Guardian mentions in their 2013 publication that even in Spain’s current double-dip recession struggle, Mondragon has managed to keep their worldwide workforce of 84,000 people.

The shared ownership of this company has helped workers sacrifice together during hard times. Shared ownership is another form of family. If somebody’s family member were to go through hard times with health or financial issues, the rest of the family members tend to help because the idea of a family is what makes us care for each other. The family form of the shared ownership is an important part of cooperatives. Mondragon faced this challenge as they scaled up to a global sized company. The result of non-member workers in Mondragon led to larger wage gaps and some in the Mondragon cooperative could not survive through economic hardships.

Another difficulty that Mondragon faces is the competition from capitalism.1 The Guardian also mentions that competition from developing world competitors with lower labor costs could lead these cooperatives to collapse altogether. In fact, one of the Mondragon cooperatives, Fargo, filed for bankruptcy in November 2013 as a result of losing competition to the global market.

Through studying Mondragon, we can see shared ownership practiced on a large scale. The question we must ask is can it can still be competitive in a worldwide market? Perhaps functioning on a local scale is a sustainable answer to this.

There is a small-scale shared ownership housing system in California. In San Francisco, where residential housing is in

1 Tremlett, Giles. “Mondragon: Spain’s giant co-operative where times are hard but few go bust.” The Guardian. 07 Mar. 2013. Web. 2 Feb. 2015. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/07/mondragon-spains-giant-cooperative.

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2013. Web. 26 Mar. 2015. http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2013/1212/CEO-vs.-worker-pay-Walmart-McDonald-sand-eight-other-firms-with-biggest-gaps/Best-Buy.

Scale

Competition from developing world competitors with lower labor costs could lead these cooperatives to collapse altogether. In fact, one of the Mondragon cooperatives, Fargo, filed for bankruptcy in November 2013 as a result of losing competition in the global market.

This cooperative is a neighborhood cooperative.

The members of this cooperative consist of local residents.

Community

The shared ownership of this company has made workers sacrifice together during hard times. The family form of the shared ownership is an important part of cooperatives.

Mondragon also faced a challenge in this as they scaled up to a global sized company. The result of non-member workers in Mondragon has led to a bigger wage gap and some within the Mondragon cooperative could not survive through economic hardships.

The relationship among the members is already a very close form of a family.

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Mondragon

Northeast Investment Cooperative

In Mondragon, the average general manager makes no more than five times more than the minimum wage paid in his or her cooperative. This is much less of a wage gap than in many other corporates. The wages are also decided through a voting system among the workers.

This model helped the cooperatives survive through economic hardships.

They meet everyday and discuss around meals about every small detail. This inclusive decision making makes them to sustain stronger together.

Intentional co-living community in San Fransisco

Analysis

Keep it local. Cooperative does not benefit from scaling up.

Jeniffer has stated that they have three communal meals a week and every adult in each household should take the role of cooking and organizing the communal meal at least once every 6 weeks. While a communal meal in every week is not mandatory to participate, they do a potluck meal altogether twice a year to meet and have a meal together. Jennifer explained that it really helps them to get to know each other more personally and that work days become easier when you know your neighbors better.

Create a strong community bond, just like a family. It will make operating easy and when the time comes they can make sacrifices together.

They meet everyday and discuss every small detail around meals. This inclusive decision making allows them to remain stronger together.

Members to be on a same page is very important. It could be made by appreciation of the common rules or democratic decision making.

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It is not legally structured as a co-living housing system, yet it is an intentional community. So the scale is limited to 10 households in this community.

high demand, shared living and co-living movements have become a rising trend. Through the help of a colleague in the Transdisciplinary Design program at Parsons, I had the opportunity to interview Jennifer, a resident who lives in a co-living house in San Francisco.

The housing system she lives in is consists of 12 condos including a common house and kitchen with a dining place as well as a shared garage and laundry rooms. It is not legally structured as a co-living housing system, yet the people in this community have set up social rules. They agreed to have community meals and community workdays to create a communal living community. She explained that they have three communal meals a week and every adult in each household should take the role of cooking and organizing the communal meal at least once every 6 weeks. While it is not mandatory to participate in a communal meal every week, they have a potluck meal together twice a year to meet and eat together. She explained that it really helps to know each other more personally and that work days become easier when you know your neighbors better.

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While I was listening to her explain how it operates, I began to see why it works and what the clear outcomes of these types of living areas are. It works because the people who are in the community are people who really want to live in this manner. She explained that the people in this community all want to live in a community rather than occupying the house, and they want to learn from each other, raise kids in a multi generational environment, and share resources together. As Mondragon is being challenged by non-member workers, if this community was open to other people who might be opposed to helping and working with each other then the shared social structure might be sustainable.

She also realized from my questions about trust and economical benefits from this lifestyle that as a household she certainly saves

money even though the condo itself has a high value. She shared valuable things like cars, bicycles, and children supplies without charging for them. This is only possible in a community that was built upon trust, and this leads to a closer community.

Besides Jennifer’s community, there are many housing systems1 in the west coast area modeled after the Denmark co-housing system.2 In each case I could found a pattern of a family. The community meal and community meetings were meant to create family gatherings which they believed would help sustain co-ownership of the community.

Another significant case of co-ownership is the Northeast Investment Cooperative.3 According to The Institute for Local Self-Resilience, it is the first of its kind in the U.S. cooperative and it is engaged in buying and developing real estate. This cooperative is a neighborhood cooperative. This means that people in the neighborhood have come together to buy real estate and develop the local real estate value. The members of this cooperative consist of local residents so that the relationship among the members is already a very close form of a family. They meet everyday over meals and discuss every small detail. This inclusive decision making creates a strong sustainable bond.

Through these cases, there were identifiable patterns that all three cooperatives have: scale (local), relationship (strong community) and agreement (shared vision). These are a working design criteria for this thesis project.

2 Bofællesskaber. Web. 15 Mar. 2015. http://www.xn--bofllesskab-c9a.dk/viewpage.php?page_id=67.

3 LaVecchia, Olivia. “The Do-It-Yourselves Downtown”. The Institute for Local Self-Resilience. 23 Feb. 2015. Web. 28 Feb. 2015. http://ilsr.org/do-it-yourselves-downtown-investment-cooperative-model/.

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1 More info: the cohousing association of the united states. Web. 21 Feb. 2015. http://www.cohousing.org/.

EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS

MAKER MENDER PROTOTYPE

The first prototype was the Maker Mender project. A group from the Transdisciplinary Design program designed a community knowledge-sharing platform in Red Hook, Brooklyn. We used the Fixers Collectives in Gowanus as our precedent to the design.

The Fixers Collective is a group of people that gather to fix things together as a hobby. They bring their own tools and try to repair whatever people bring to fix that day. Anyone can bring an object that needs to be fixed and they can donate money to show their appreciation.

The Maker Mender event was hosted three times at the wood workshop in the heart of Red Hook. It is a event where neighbors are invited to come and participate in sharing their knowledge of making tactile items that could be useful in natural disaster situations.

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At the first event, one of the participants from the neighborhood brought food as a way to respond to the event and knowledge was shared through the event. This brought us, the hosts, and participants from the neighborhood together. So the second time, we purposely designed altruism within the platform to see how people would react to it. Surprisingly enough the participants were much more relaxed and engaged deeply to the event and wanted to share more of whatever they have whether it was knowledge in tactile items or food. After the third time, people in the neighborhood were more open to share knowledge as well as food in order to make this event happen and they grew to host it on their own.

I believe that the exchange of food brought people together as a community. Neighbors went from a strangers who happen to live in the same neighborhood to friends who share food and skills. The purpose of this prototype was to create a stronger community and this became successful through the element of food. Furthermore, the space we had came about accidentally, yet was perfect for it’s own event. It was easy to access geographically and the room was

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Maker Mender event at Red Hook, Brooklyn

private enough to create it’s own culture within the group. This made the group feel like one community.

Maker Mender event at Red Hook, Brooklyn

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A special characteristic of Red Hook it it’s neighborhoods. Red Hook is a vulnerable area in terms of natural disasters. It went through tough times during Sandy and that created a stronger bond within the neighborhood. Because of these reasons, we could connect with the community pretty quickly.

If Maker Mender was replicated in another neighborhood, I would make sure to talk and engage with people who are already interested in tactile hobbies before starting the event. I would also make sure to host the event at an area such as a small room within a community center which is easily accessible. The locale should have a welcoming atmosphere to promote the community to create their own culture. Also, the element of food is key. It was an anecdotal discovery at first, however after testing it two more times it was proven that sharing food is very important in building a community.

In scaling this model, perhaps a tactile element would not be applicable to many other locations. Yet food sharing and the community bonding could happen in any situation.

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COLLABORATIVE DINNER

Learning from the Maker Mender prototype, I decided to use food more explicitly to create a strong community bond specifically to answer the conflict of the mixed income housing. I wanted to test how perceptions of different social statues could be eliminated through sharing food.

I hosted dinner at my kitchen. It’s about 250 square feet and not exactly suitable to share with multiple households. I had six guests including my roommate. One person was a Muslim girl, one person was white male, and five were Asians. The income level was dramatically different. Four people were students, two people were nearly ten years into their career and one person was had been unemployed for more than a year.

To organize the collaborative dinner together, I brought a recipe and delegated steps to different people. The recipe was discussed as a group text before the night and each person’s diet preferences were obtained. Because one person was a vegetarian, I had to make a vegetarian recipe in addition to the original recipe.

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When people first arrived I greeted them and asked if they wanted to have drinks. I prepared water, wine and tea. Most people preferred wine as it helped them settle into an unfamiliar environment. Once more than four people arrived we began to cook together. Each person started chopping each ingredient. I prepared the recipe for Kimbap since it requires many different ingredients to be chopped.

Throughout the process, people naturally started conversing. Topics ranged from the struggle of looking for the right job to how hard it is to find a boyfriend in the city, from a difficult apartment search to family stories. The night was full of joy and endless interesting conversations with plenty of food that we cooked together.

The change of perception during the night was hard to measure

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Participants engaging in conversations while cutting and peeling the ingredients

because it’s something that people don’t express out loud nor talk about in an honest manner unless between people with very close relationships. I only know two people closely in this group and both of them expressed that they weren’t bothered by people that they normally do not like being around.

Everyone played a part in the meal that was prepared. Not only were they making jokes about the food itself, each person learned how to cook and they adapted their own ways of making the same dish during the night. The cleaning process was also very quick because everyone helped with the process.

At the end of the cleaning, one of the participants stated, “I feel like this is my home. We cook and clean together. It’s like a family.” This one sentence came out from him randomly and it made me smile. Using food as an element in design to share ownership of the kitchen was a success.

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My kitchen is quite spacious considering it’s in New York City, so having seven people in the kitchen did not feel very crowded.

However it was obvious that cooking requires more space than eating. The kitchen has to be designed for shared use. There was a benefit of having the heating area (stove oven) separate from the cutting and mixing area because they definitely need almost double the space. Also, cleaning and preparing the sink could be separated to create a smoother process. It could be modeled after commercial kitchens that restaurants use.

I think the idea of a cooking class type of gathering can be applied in many places in building a community but not in a formal way.

The informality of the class mixed with a dinner party was the special part of this. The guests expressed how it was fun to learn and it broke the awkwardness of the first few conversations. Because each one was doing something that contributes to the meal, talking around it was much easier than just talking in a typical social setting.

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Naima, a participant, trying to roll the Kimbap for the first type

Few local governments in the world enjoy the powers that American communities have... US mayors and city-council members have a policy tool chest that enables them to invest, contract, zone, tax, lobby, and police. They have the ability to spend public funds on almost anything. While these powers are not unlimited, it’s fair to say that the problem facing US local governments is not the absence of powers, but the absence of political will to exercise them.1

1 Shuman, Michael. Going Local: Creating Self-reliant Communities in a Global Age. 1st ed. Routledge, 2000. Print.

THE PUBLIC KITCHEN The Public Kitchen Project is a service that can be provided as part of the affordable housing program to help My Micro NY residents experience sharing ownership through sharing a kitchen. My Micro NY is NYC’s first micro-apartment complex, see details on page 38.

In this kitchen, residents could cook and dine together and build a strong community, which is key in a co-ownership experience.

The kitchen could offer programs so that co-ownership can be practiced. My prototype versions of the kitchen have proven that cooking together could be encouraged through informal community cooking classes and dinner parties. This could be organized with active residents. Also, recipes that are shared through these classes and gatherings could be stored and communicated through the website www.publickitchenproject.com. (This website is an active demonstration of what the service could look like to the users.)

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How could this public kitchen be implemented at My Micro NY? In My Micro NY, there is no shared kitchen in the blue print, yet there is a community room as a shared facility. The detailed information of the community room is not accessible, so it is difficult to tell what the room will actually be. Assuming the kitchen can be installed in the community room or elsewhere in a shared area, what is needed most would be kitchen appliances.

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BUSINESS PLAN The cost of kitchen appliances varies. Below, you can see the estimated costs for appliances and cabinets, which are the most expensive parts of installing the kitchen.

KEY PARTNERS • • •

Housing Preservation and Development Department of Mental and Hygiene Community members

KEY ACTIVITIES Transparency in operation Community meetings Equipment functionality Keeping the kitchen clean Online: posting recipes and announcement

KEY RESOURCES • Kitchen appliances, equipment • Furniture

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COST STRUCTURE Appliances 5 piece suite: range, microwave, ventilation, refrigerator/freezer, dishwasher • Mid-range: $3,600 to $8,100 • High-end: $12,400 to $35,000 Counters: Material types: Nonporous material types should be used like laminate, ceramic tile, solid man-made surface of corian and quartz natural stone(slab and tile), wood, stainless and copper...

• Prefabricated: $360 to $2,000* • Custom: $450 to $18,000* *The average costs above are based on using a 200 square foot (10’x20’) kitchen as a standard

VALUE PROPOSITION

AUDIENCE RELATIONSHIPS

• • • • • •

•

Ownership Accessibility Availability Learning Networking Sharing food

•

Long-term interdependent Intimate

DISTRIBUTION CHANNELS • • • •

AUDIENCE SEGMENTS •

Residents of My Micro NY who want to do any of the following: - Cook in a bigger kitchen - Learn to cook - Cook together with others

In community meetings As a part of housing system Advertisements in the other amenity spaces in the building Word of mouth

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REVENUE STREAM • This kitchen is part of a housing complex (My Micro NY) that was developed as a non-profit. Therefore, I did not design this kitchen system to create a profit.

• One way to pay for the costs of this system would be slightly increase the rent for residents, calculating the benefit the residents would get from this amenity.

• Another way to pay for the costs would be to open the facility for non-residents to use during off hours. The non-residents would pay a fee to use the kitchen.

AGENCY STRUCTURE This service would be operated by NYC Housing preservation and development (HPD). HPD is the main department to carry out the affordable housing program.

It could especially be part of the Office of Strategy, Research, and Communications under the Office of Commissioner. I identified that The Division of Intergovernmental Policy and External Affairs would be most appropriate to apply this service. This division works with city, state, and federal officials, agencies, policy makers, advocates and planners in public and private sectors to assess housing policy and manage New York City’s affordable housing legislative agenda.

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The role of the HPD would be more in regulating the service as a part of the affordable housing system. Since affordable housing system is multi-sector engagement that HPD supports and plans the big picture, architectures and developers develop detail plan of the each building and there is management company who take over in managing the housing after it has been built the service should be plans in multi level engagement. The potential delivery of this service for each stakeholder is shown in the next page.

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The main interaction that the government will take for this service is in regulating and guiding the architecture and development with companies involved in building the housing and in providing strategies that were developed in this thesis to management companies to help them run the service.

The actual service would be carried out mostly with the joint effort of management and active residents. Active residents are key for this strategy to be successful. They are the advocate of the service and contents generator, while the management and government only provide the infrastructure of the service.

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The next page shows how the kitchen could be planned out in this space. It has much room for development as I am not an architect, yet this suggested kitchen layout generated from the prototype I ran.

In our modern societies where all members are working according to sometimes incompatible schedules, eating “homecooked� meals altogether remains a rare but nonetheless important part of family life and group identity. This is despite the omnipresence of massproduced frozen dishes and easy-to use microwave ovens which have individualized the consumption of food and minimized the role of family traditions transferred between generations.1

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1 Julier, Alice P. Eating Together Food, Friendship, and Inequality. Urbana: U of Illinois, 2013. Print.

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BUBBLE PLAN

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DESIGN ITERATION

STORY BOARD

In the process of service design iteration, I made a storyboard to layout the details of the service with elements of the kitchen, services and furniture and ways to reach out to users. Through this process I identified areas for further research such as food providers and larger food systems.

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My initial design was to have the kitchen as a storefront for a community and this storyboard shows how staff might work in

the shared kitchen. However, this idea did not meet a creative community from the design criteria (p.46). Also, having to go to a store to cook for domestic use was not yet convincing.

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DESIGN ITERATION WORKSHOP My second development of the design approach was to generate future scenarios in relations to food systems. I created a worksheet that has three columns. Each column was revealed at a time. The first column was designed to put participants into year 2045 with projected data. The second column was to create a persona of 2045 based on the first column, which could be a reflection of participants through answering questions: dietary preferences, occupation, priority of life. The third column was to picture them sharing life in detail. This was not part of the sheet until the second iteration of the workshop design. However, I wanted participants to think about sharing food and wanted to know how each person imagines the future of food systems. The next phase was to use an image card I prepared and to create the scenario they imagine in 2045 about entire cycles of food systems.

I hosted a workshop with food studies experts and a food community student group at The New School. All participants suggested that sharing in food systems is necessary due to an upcoming food crisis which is mainly impacted by a growing population and climate change. Shared cooking and dining experiences are especially already practiced in one way another. Restaurants and multidwellings in New York City make this a natural event to think about.

There are also other interesting ideas of sharing in the production and distribution processes. One example was to have a farm in urban parks and have a co-owning system among citizens in which people take part in farming and procuring meat.

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From this workshop, the expected variety of shared scenarios did not come out. However the idea of sharing the kitchen in 2045 was very strong and I wanted to push forward with the shared kitchen idea.

The mission for me was to find a way to bridge the gap between the current perception of the shared kitchen to the 2045 shared kitchen. That is why my proposition is in shifting the idea of a kitchen in a housing system while at the same time shifting the idea of ownership.

2045

create a persona in 2045

World population is now 9.6 billion (7 billion in 2015).

Please create a persona in the year of 2045 by answering the questions below (your income level is middle to low)

The average life span of an American is 120 years old.

What is your dietary preference?

Sharable life Based on the last two sessions, identify shareable parts of your life in relation to food. (growing food together with neighbors, sharing kitchen space and appliances as community...)

What do you share?

Most of the population lives in a megaregion (grew from megacities of early 21c) consisting of 100 million people.

Is it common to live in a 160-square-foot single-room-occupancy unit with a communal kitchen or bathroom facilities in urban areas.

Sensors that convey dietary requirements for emotional and physical health are available.

What is your source of income? (if it’s applicable, where do you work at?)

Whom are you sharing with?

What is most important to you?

Why do you share?

Food prices have gone up 270% since 2015 (ex: milk is $10.77).

Oil and Gas are very limited to use. We use alternative sources of energy.

More than 75% of the world population is now connected to the internet.

Money

Location

Time

Space

Privacy

Community

Future of life : Food consumption and experiences

Title :

With image cards, please create the future you created through previous worksheet.

Production of Food

Distribution

Eating

Cooking

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Food experts discussing the food issue during the workshop

One of the scenario presented with image cards

Workshop with Food Community Group at The New School

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DESIGN ITERATION

QUESTIONNAIRES AND OBSERVATIONS

Name:

Contact (only if you agree to be contacted about this)

In a box below draw simple floor plan of your current house. Remember to mark all bed rooms and kitchen.

Kitchen

Bath Room Living Room

Bedroom2

Closet

Bedroom1 (example)

Now think about last time when you cooked at your kitchen.

Describe the situation in detail such as who was there, what you were making, what was your state of mind.

You can use digrams, draw a scene from the memory or write.

Approx date and time: ex) few days ago, 02/16 aorund dinner, 10pm

Please tell me what you like about your kitchen and what you wish about the kitchen

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I like:

I wish:

Parsons School of Design fresh year students answering the questionnaires

I conducted questionnaires and observation research on human interaction in their kitchen. I wanted to learn more about the relationship of the space in a kitchen, different activities in the kitchen, and state of mind during all of this.

The questionnaires were applied with Parsons School for Design fresh year undergraduate students and some of my friends in the City.

I started the questionnaires with a drawing of a simple blueprint of a house. The purpose was to start in a fun way and to see what type of housing participants are situated in. The second part of the paper asks the participant to describe the last meal the person had at home. I thought this would reveal the how often the person cooks at home and what type of food was made and their state of mind during the process. The last part asks ‘I like’ and ‘I wish’. This is to determine what is important and desired in current kitchens.

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I also visited a single household kitchen, dormitory kitchen, housing cooperative kitchen and commercial shared kitchen. In each place, I observed how different housing types effects usage and interaction with the kitchen.

The questionnaire could have been more direct or a design probe instead.

I could have saved time from doing the both questionnaires and visiting different sites. However, through this process I could gain some important insight. Alongside with being proactive about growing and caring about food, another trend in food is dehumanizing the process. When alone, people often eat on the go. According to the questionnaires, cooking becomes a social activity. Most people who answered that they live alone and cook alone did not like to cook or eat at home. It feels lonely and time consuming. On the contrary people who answered that they live in a close relationship with roommates (family or close friendships) cook more often.

Also unsurprisingly, everyone answered that they want more kitchen space, especially more cabinets and countertops.

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These answers from the questionnaire were confirmed from the visits. The kitchens which were meant to be shared required more storage spaces and countertops. One of the cooperative kitchens I visited in BedfordStuyvesant, Brooklyn had remodeled the kitchen for shared use and had three additional kitchen islands to have more flexible countertop spaces, added two extra small sinks and had large wall shelves for pantry use.

Bedford-Stuyvesant Cooperative Housing

Hanna Kitchen, extended storage spaces

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Response of questionnaires

PART 3 IMPLICATION

ASSESSMENT

Design For a Shift brings a new perspective of ownership to a community by suggesting a community co-owned kitchen. What I have done is investigate the sharing economy and food system and found a problem in which the sharing economy only enables the sharing of access. Through the practice of public service design with adaptation of the positive impact of the sharing economy, I strategize crafting a new culture of ownership.

What I have done in this thesis is shown that design can help shape a new culture of ownership. It also anticipates the future through the scenario.

Implications of Design For a Shift What has been tested through this case study are three phases of a design strategy for a shift. Here, the process of design is a strategy that addresses a problem in the affordable housing system. The outcome of this design process finds the leverage point where design can intervene in public policy and development.

It can also be speculated that a rigorous research process, wide range of experimental analysis and well-informed proposal could anticipate the future through the scenario. It may change the current perceptions on how a house should be designed. Through this change, more people could afford quality living in cities and the city could form a stronger community.

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Assessing the Case Study The study of the housing system and the complex idea of shifting the culture of ownership lies in affordable housing as part of a public service. The proposal has not been tested in the context of Housing Preservation and Development yet. There are many things to be done before this case study could be delivered as a real service. This is an area where there is no failure and proven data has been gathered. The next step in this case study would be to

engage with architects, developers and management companies that are experienced in affordable housing programs to valid the idea with specific requirements in each area. To make this idea robust, this service could be piloted for a short length of time before implementing it permanently.

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REFLECTION

The following are reflections on the research and practice of Design For a Shift.

Architecture This research contributes in architecture studies in designing living spaces. This is especially important in how the shared spaces could be implemented in a housing complex to solve situations of conflict and how the shared spaces could be designed to share not only the space but the ownership of the space. The three design criteria of co-ownership and the three phases of design strategy could be used in designing shared spaces and invested further in how spacial design could impact the social fabrications of the city.

Politics This design approach is also political. It proclaims design to take a role in conversations of politics, as opposed to stepping in as a problem solver after the policy has already been applied. It emphasizes seeing design as a capacity to envision alternative futures and brings new ways of thinking about policies.

Economics

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Design For a Shift started from my interest in alternative economies and my desire to reduce income inequality gaps. This is not advocating socialism. It’s purpose is to create multiple strong communities so that we as a community become more resilient economically in this globalized world. It is an economic statement that shifts our idea of individual ownership to a shared one that we could own less individually while we own more together.

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PART 4 CONCLUSION

CONCLUSION

Design to create a culture and the future

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I am bringing a capacity that policy makers, developers, or architects would not necessarily be able to complete independently. As a Transdisciplinary Design approach, Design For a Shift is a design strategy that changes our understanding of housing, food system, economics and policy making. A study of alternative economics is an investigation of perception of ownership. A conversation about housing systems is a question of future life styles.

The public kitchen proposal is a contribution to NYC Housing Preservation and Development in housing plan that Mayor Bill de Blasio set out to achieve in next decade to build 200,000 more affordable units in the City. Yet, this does not end in affordable housing. It also changes how we conceive housing and the kitchen within. This proposed kitchen could become a shared domestic kitchen. It makes people share a part of their house. It is a starting point in the way we consume food and understand the design of a housing system in the near future. The “partially shared life� could help create more housing units by eliminating or reducing areas of the current model. This would shift our understanding of housing completely.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank to my primary advisor, Lara Penin and my thesis cohort: Christopher Edwards, Colleen Doyle, Mollie West and Rachelle Tai for their consistent support, generosity and boosting energy throughout my master’s thesis process.

In addition, I would like to thank Fabio Parasecoli, Director of the Food Studies program and Food Community Group at The New School. Their devoted knowledge in food systems and the time they spent on discussing and practicing this thesis was a very valuable piece of this research.

I would also like to thank Clive Dilnot, Patricia Beirne, Elliott Montgomery, Eduardo Staszowski and each one of my colleagues in the fourth cohort of MFA Transdisciplinary Design and our predecessors.

Lastly, I’d like to thank James Crockett, my love and proofreader.

Thank you.