DESIGN INTERVENTION
Relationship First Aid Kit
Description
Opportunity Space
The Relationship First Aid Kit contains tools inspired by medical first aid kits to heal and rejuvenate relationships. Each tool in the Relationship First Aid Kit addresses damaged relationships at one of the four levels in the framework of relationships, increasing in scope from self to contextual.
Many of my interviewees spoke about seeing a failure to build relationships with their neighbors and in their local communities. The Relationship First Aid Kit addresses this opportunity space: like a medical first aid kit, is scalable and applicable to many locations, but acts at a relatively small scale in each instance; at most it is designed to heal approximately a small office space or the floor of a building.
Medical first aid kits are available in most workplaces and other public places. They are so commonplace that we design them to blend in with walls and often overlook them. While bodies are physical, relationships are often perceived as intangible, and we perhaps have more hubris when it comes to dealing with them than we do with our physical bodies. The Relationship First Aid Kit provides physical interventions for the invisible ties between us. What would it look like if the Relationship First Aid Kit was available in every place that a medical first aid kit is available? How can we place more value and care on our relationships as a society than we do on our own will and entertainment?
40
TEAMBUILDING AMERICA
