3P | Kolmas Paikka Projekti by Joanne Lin

a. Contents b. Introduction

c. Kolmas Paikka Group

1. Early Stages - Piazza to Semi-Public

2. User Study Process

3. Insights and Key Findings

3.8 Design Drivers

4. Conceptualising Process

5. Reflections

3P. The Kolmas Paikka Concept x. Images

y. Project Bibliography

z. Acknowledgments

b. Introduction The Kolmas Paikka Projekti - the Third Place Project - was part of the User Inspired Design module at the University of Art and Design Helsinki during the Autumn term 2009. The Master level project spannned nine weeks under the professorship of Tuuli Mattelmäki and the support of doctoral students. The five student groups involved were given the theme of ‘Piazza’ to explore and derive a design research focus from. After an initial exploration of the theme, our project focussed on integrating the elderly into public space. After a user study with 6 elderly women from Tapiola, Espoo, we developed a design concept that aims to facilitate the use of public space by the elderly and integration with the wider-community. The project was presented on the 11th of December, 2009 at the University of Art and Design Helsinki.

c. Kolmas Paikka Group Our team, randomly selected at the start of the project, was both international and multidisciplinary. As pictured, right. From left to right: Otto Miettinen is a masters level Usability student from Helsinki University of Technology, Information Networks study programme. Otto studies at UIAH to support his Usability studies at HUT in the specialised Usability School. Sam Dunne is a masters level Product Design student currently on a year long exchange at UIAH from the Glasgow School of Art, UK. As part of the Master of European Design programme, Sam also spent a year studying Integrated Design at the Köln International School of Design in Cologne, Germany. Joanne Lin just started her masters degree studies in Industrial and Strategic Design at UIAH after completing her bachelor’s degree back home in the National University of

Singapore. She is also part of the Usability School programme. Milla Toukkari is an Industrial Design student having started her masters programme at UIAH in the Autumn 2009. Milla’s research oriented bachelor of arts was also completed at UIAH. As a minor she has studied theoretical philosophy at the University of Helsinki. Jari-Pekka Kola is currently studying towards a masters degree in Industrial and Strategic Design at UIAH. Also part of the Master of European Design programme, Jari spent one year at Politecnico di Milano in Milan, Italy and the other at Ecole National Superieure de Creation Industrielle, ENSCI - Les Ateliers in Paris, France. As the project draws to an end, all share the opinion that it was a pleasure to work on this project, teamwork making long hours bareable.

An important part of User Inspired Design process is to first ask,

“What should be designed?”

as apposed to starting with a predefined design brief. The early stages of the module were intended to accustom the students with the resultant feeling of uncertainty.

1. Early Stages - Piazza and the Semi-Public To kick start the module the groups were asked to select and watch a movie that could be in anyway related to the theme of “Piazza”. Following discussion on the films, each group produced a 3d-collage. The Kolmas Paikka team selected Taking Woodstock. Our connection to the theme was made with the duality of frontstage and backstage in public life.This early focus would later guide the project direction as we began to study the roles people take in different public spaces and the gap between the intended and actual use of and space. In this respect we began to concentrate on the over-commercialisation of public spaces; this having a major effect in restricting social activity. Thus we defined our early focus under the title Semi-Public. We grounded this fo-

cus in several theoretical studies and concepts. Oldenburg’s writings and descriptions of the “Third Place” [1] proved extremely influential, also inspiring the team name. The discourse of commercialisation of public space [2] and studies regarding the overall relationship between public spaces and social life in cities [3] were also key.

blogging about their experiences. During the first phases of the project, we began analysing the campaign, as it revealed so succinctly, in its attempts to make the shopping centre more homely, the extent of the divide between the home and semi-public space.

As the Finnish idiom describes where you sleep, is where you live. From our early observations in Helsinki we noted this sentiment being drawn upon by several advertising campaigns. The most striking perhaps was that of Anni & Fanni, two young girls living in the Forum shopping centre, sleeping in their own little cabin, eating in the restaurants, and getting paid for shopping and

On top of this analysis, the group also partook in short in-situ interviews with different user groups at the mall. We interviewed a few guards, a coffee shop assistant and some cosmetics sales personnel about their observations on people passing through or “hanging around” in Forum. Interestingly, the conversation with the guards centred around young people in the mall. The elderly, in contrast, proved less topical as they were perceived as simply

[1] Oldenburg, Ray The Great Good Places

[2] Eriksson E et al. Reclaiming Public Space

buying, eating and leaving. After a quick democratic “post-it war”, summing up all the possibly interested and interviewed user groups in the semi-public, we selected the elderly as the user group we would like to investigate, precisely because of the perception - that their use of public space was exclusively functional. Later in the process, after completing our user study and interpretation, our concepts would focus on reclaiming public space, enable life between buildings and bring the indispensable third places back to Helsinki metropolitan area: all this happening through enhancing ambient human presence and casual interaction.

[3] Gehl, Jan, Life Between Buildings

2. User Study Process The elderly emerged as our target demographic for the project’s user study. Before any sort of meeting, preconceptions were of course already made. Firstly, we noticed the lack of elderly people in public spaces around Helsinki. Secondly, we assumed that they have a lot of spare time. After advice from our Professor Tuuli Mattelmäki, we further focused our interest to the still active elderly women living in Tapiola, partly as they were easy to reach via an elderly Service Centre contact, Eija Valkama. Tuuli directed us towards the Tapiola area because of its sizable retired population and due to the likelihood that the community will soon face changes resulting from the extension of the Helsinki Metro into the area. 2.2 Interviews & Observation After deciding upon Tapiola as our focus, we spent as much time as possible in the place to observe what the people do, and in which kinds of places they spend their time in public, documenting through note/taking and photographs. On observing elderly people, we conducted short conversational in-situ interviews with them regarding their thoughts on the area. We asked them where they spend time, what is their favorite or least favorite place in the area, why they would visit other cities like Helsinki and what they would imagine as an ideal place to spend time. Asking the questions in a conversational manner also allowed us to draw on inspiring insights out of the scope of the questions.

2.3 Meeting the User Group After making initial observations and interviews we met our user group in the Tapiola Service Centre for the first time. The purpose of this informal focus group interview was to get acquainted with the users, sensitize them to the subject and to get directions for the probes tasks we were planning to use later on. In order to get acquainted and to motivate our users, we baked cinnamon buns. The “Cinnamon Bun” method was successful, with some users promising to do the probes tasks only because we had gone to so much trouble baking for them. As a means of sensitzsing the users to the topic and to raise discussion, we used picture cue cards and a map of Tapiola. The cue cards had different piazza-related images in them, including different benches, openings and public places. The inclusion of benches was significant as both Gehl and Oldenburg had expressed the importance of seating in the public space. The map of Tapiola was abstract, and highlighted the main buildings in Tapiola. The cue cards raised generally more discussion than the map. We also discovered the fine balance between sensitizing the group and using too much of their time on seemingly pointless taks. As a result from the initial meeting we found out that many of our preconceptions were wrong. For example, these elderly women were really active and we had trouble booking meeting times with them.

2.4 Probe Kits After the initial meeting we had a couple of busy days preparing the tasks for the probes kit. We had to adjust the tasks we initially envisioned for the probes to better suit the users. The probes kit consisted of the following tasks, which were divided under a period of five days:

and write down what they would have done with its powers during the day if it could enable them to do anything.

Meaningful Place - Merkityksellinen paikka Users were asked to draw an image of a meaningful place and write about why they selected it. We included tracing paper to ensure that drawing would not be an obstacle for doing the task.

Dreamsville - Unelmakaupunki The users were asked to make a map of the Tapiola of their dreams. We included different colored pieces of paper to be glued on the map, with symbols for the metro station and the user’s own house, but left most of the other shapes unexplained so the users could find their own meanings.

Encounters - Kohtaamisia Users were given 24 images of people cut out of a newspaper. They had to sort them to “yes” and “no” envelopes according to whether or not they would wish to have a conversation with them. The Magic Thing - Taikavoimia Users were given a plastic jewel, that was said to have magic powers. The task was to keep the jewel with them,

Your Timetable - Lukujärjestyksesi The users were asked to draw up an imaginary timetable for the week supposing the Service Centre didn’t exist.

In addition to these tasks, the users kept a diary for the period in which they described their daily activities and had space for commenting and writing about the other tasks. Two probes kits also included a camera task, where the users were asked to take pictures in their own homes about things that keep them home, and things that drive them or inspire

“I have stuff to do each day, not too much, but enough,” Evi, User Diary

them to get out of the house. 2.5 Follow Up We only met the users shortly when getting the probes packages back, and had a quick chat mostly about how they felt doing the probes. As feedback, they said that there was some effort to be put into doing the tasks, and they expressed their worry about whether they had written anything useful for our purposes. The second time we met them we had already interpreted the probes results and created some concept ideas. We showed them three initial concept ideas in a co-creation session, where one of the concepts got significantly more and one significantly less attention than others. We aimed to present the concepts as vaguely as possible, and leave room for their comments, ideas and conversation in developing or creating new concepts. 2.6 Final Review After the follow-up meeting with the users, we went to further develop the concepts with the feedback from the users still in mind. After two weeks we returned to the Service Centre with the final concept idea that included ideas from all of the initial concepts and the input from the users in the follow-up meeting. We made sure to clearly demonstrate their contribution to the solution. As a result, we received some valuable evaluation and feedback.

“

3. Insights and Key Findings The initial findings of our user study were quite surprising in that they broke down some of the presumptions we had made about women in this age group when we selected them as an appropriate user groups for this project. Frail, old, lonely and inactive grandmother figures may, and probably do, exist in our societies. These six women, although portraying some key attributes of aging, were, however, distinctly different from the stereotypical group. 3.1 Activity and Pro-activity We noted a striking level of activity among the group, some, perhaps jokingly, claiming to “have never been so busy in all my life”. Whether true or hyperbole these comments still reveal the users perception of leading busy lives. Clearly a concept that provides distraction or simply “something to do” is not required for users. Other related insights included the openness of the users to get involved in available activities. We saw a heavy dependence on the Tapiola Service Centre in this respect, revealed by the timetabling exercise in the design probes. The centre provides most of the user’s social interaction as well as allowing them to engage in stimulating pastimes. A keen interest in craft, partly encouraged by artisan volunteers at the Service Center, was common in the group. Interestingly, craft, or other mentally stimulating entertainment, often accompanied other more passive activities such as watching TV. Television watching was rarely regarded as a positive use of time thus requiring

tan extra, more productive layer of activity - even reading a book was mentioned. On top of this we noticed the users often attended lectures or cultural events in which a sense of education or self-improvement was evident. These finding linked directly to a design driver, entitled “Productive Relaxing”. Although most women showed a desire to be involved in a range of activities and even an ability to ideate on activities they would like to do that are not presently catered for we noticed a reliance on structures, rules and “leaders” in contrast to self-organisition. Examples of these structures include the Service Centre as well as the “Martat” women’s group. Creativity and pro-activity in organising activities was only displayed within these existing systems. This also proved a challenge for the users, later in our process when, we presented them with our concepts.

3.2 Social Interaction Social interaction was regarded as an important part of life by the user group. Some of the group lived alone, usually following a spouse’s death, the rest still residing with their partners. All users, however, expressed the need to “get out of the house” and partake in activities with friends and acquaintances within the surrounding community. As an element of this the users also pointed to the dynamic among their regular meeting group was important in encouraging each other to remain active as well as giving a sense of belonging and security. Having close friends and family also proved extremely important in providing peace of mind. 3.3 Community All users of the group were keen to express their opinions when the community in Tapiola was raised in discussion. All saw a “sense of community” as a desirable thing - “the city shouldn’t be introvert”. Linked to the above interest in education and self-improvement (see 3.1) the user group also expressed an interest in keeping up with the world around them - newspapers for example figuring hugely in their lives. Outside of family meetings, however, we noted very few opportunities for the user group to interface with other demographics in the Tapiola area.

3.4 Aging Evidence suggesting that lack of integration with younger age-groups in old age can speed up the aging process was reflected in the discussions with the user group. The group agreed that being surrounded by other elderly people, particularly those older than the users themselves, raises negative thoughts and emotions relating to their own ages. This combined with a less active lifestyle, as is commonly seen as appropriate in old age, were deemed highly detrimental to users’ health. The group expressed their desire to slow their aging through remaining active. 3.5 Use of Spaces Use of public spaces outwith the Service Centre was relatively low and usually related to commercial premises, especially in the cold winter months. Going to cafes with friends for example was seen as a pleasurable pastime but had negative associations in terms of cost. Hosting each other at home on a rotational system, although a viable option, proves a difficulty as some are more capable than others due to facilities or ability, resulting in stress and discomfort for those feeling that they can’t keep up.

“I think if I sat down on this bench other people would be more comfortable to sit next to me and maybe start a conversation” Lilli, first meeting in Tapiola

3.6 Routine and Responsibility Despite the almost unanimous claim of the users to have little or no routine in their lives, the probes kit and discussions with the group revealed this to be an untruth. The users’ lives were generally centered on weekly activities, usually relating to the schedules Service Centre. On top of these restraints we also found that the users put strict schedules on themselves - each one explaining in the probe kit that one day of the week is set aside for cleaning. As well as informing us on the users sense of routine this insight also revealed to us the importance of responsibility (or a sense thereof) in the users lives. Most users described cleaning and maintaining of their homes as a regular and important activity. The writings of the user group in their probe diaries suggested to us that this was more about being responsible for the home rather than taking pleasure in a clean environment. This sense of responsibility also seemed to extend outwith the home to the wider community. 3.7 The City of London Bench The image on the facing page was included in the collection of flash cards used in the early meeting with the users. Despite being included as a negative image of public space by the design team, it was perceived positively by the user. From the accompanying quote (left) we can draw on Erving Goffman’s analysis of public life when he offers that we all just need “an excuse to interact”.

3.8 Design Drivers

Number 1) Name

Integration

Visibility

Productive Relaxing

Self-Regulation

Accessibility

Driver Description

The concept should support the elderly to integrate into the streets, space and everyday lives of the wider community.

The concept should be highly visible for the public, thus supporting the integration into the streetscape. If the activity is highly visible, the impact on society is higher and all groups are more likely to join in.

The concept should support connecting relaxing activity with being productive.

People should be able to take part in the planning of their own activities, and feel like they “own” the place.

The concept should be easily accessible and open to everyone in order to support community-wide integration.

Reasoning

The user group saw the Service Center as “hidden” from the life of the community in Tapiola. They also expressed they would like to have casual interaction amongst other age groups. Including the elderly in the streetscape of an area can also have a positive effect on its feel of community, as observed by many commentators.

We found that the user group was a bit hesitant towards intangibility and anything that hasn’t been realised yet in action, thus proving the need for visible touchpoints of any product service system in which they are involved. Gehl also describes how bars and activity groups with windows onto the street-level have higher than average footfall.

From the probes results, we derived that the elderly like to be productive, even when relaxing. For example, only watching television is seen as a waste of time. It is thus accompanied by knitting or even reading.

The group of elderly people in the project are extremely active. In the Tapiola Service Center they are pleased to be able to come up with their own activities that take place in the Service Center. Pre-defined activities are not so popular. We notice, however, that the existence and clarity of a predefined framework allow the users to be pro-active. Proactivity is also essential in creating ownership amongst the users.

The elderly expressed that they have trouble attending different activities because of limitations in group sizes, physical distance and bureaucratic restrictions. Financial restrictions were also discussed.

“The city shouldn’t be introvert”

“People come where people are,” Jan Gehl

“I have stuff to do each day, not too much, but enough”

“The joy of doing things”

“There are these [computer] courses, but it is hard to get to them”

Supporting evidence

“Everybody there was older than me, I feel old amongst old people”

“Sometime this place felt like our own, but not anymore. Eija is lovely, but too busy, and we can’t do things without her.”

4. Conceptualising Process Despite proving to be an extremely interesting and also highly fruitful stage in the project, it should be noted that concept generation was a relatively minor part of the overall process. Shiny concept renders, aesthetically pleasing and instantly tangible, can often steal the limelight of project presentation, thus obscurring the value of the research and process behind it. Concept develpment in this module was carried out to aid the communication of the user study findings whilst also offering possible design solutions. 4.2 Conceptualizing Goals Whilst identifying the time constraints and the goals of the module as outlined above, we were keen to push the process to create a concept that was a viable and as attractive to the user group as possible. To achieve this we planned a highly iterative process, returning to the Service Center in Tapiola several times to test our theories through discussion or co-design sessions. 4.3 Brainstorming Brainstorming was vital to most stages of the project. Brainstorming

was carried out both in groups and individually to maximise creativity. Breadth of thinking and ideas, sometimes proved challenging, but after a deep user study, proved relatively of little trouble to us. 4.4 Selection and Personas Much more problematic was the selection of ideas to develop. At the first attempt we came to realise our problems were rooted in the intangibility of our user study findings. We used the 6 users as personas to guide our concepts, but later created 2 imaginary personas to further grasp and gather our findings with the various characteristics. This allowed our thinking and selection to be much more empathic. Of course personal preference and intuition also played a part in selecting the ideas. 4.5 Initial Concepts After grouping our vast array of initial ideas we selected three that proved most promising to present to the users. 3P box Acting as both a storage space and a common meeting point as a box, or boxes, in the commu-

nity allow users to share items and help each other. The self-regulatory nature of the concept allows it to cater for the needs of the users that services in the area neglect e.g. cheap coffee, DIY tools. Laundrobar Allowing users to do their household chores in the company of others, this concept takes the home into the public space. Conservatory Using modern technology, the user can record monologues or conversations for their own use or share it with others. The users can also interact with younger generations of the community who would handle the use and editing of the media. 4.6 Co-Design We presented our three chosen concepts to the user groups to gather their comments on the ideas. As outlined previously (Section 2.5) the concepts, although significantly developed already, were only alluded to with symbolic graphical images and a brief verbal explanation. This allowed the usersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; thoughts and comments to be as free and natural as possible. The co-design

process gave us natural direction in combining certain elements of two concepts into the creation of a final solution. The discussion arising during the activity also enriched and consolidated our user study findings. 4.6 Concept Development Concept development was carried out largely in group discussion with reference to the design drivers, personas and findings from the co-design session at all times as a guide. 4.7 Solution Communication As a satisfying solution was reached we used a variety of techniques to express our vision: Visualizations were used to portray the tangible elements of the concept. Whilst using photographs of Tapiola to provide context. We also attempted to keep the visualisations relatively rough to emphasize that we had in fact designed the system rather than the finer aesthetic details of each individual touchpoint. Service evidencing was employed where more realistic depiciton of a touchpoint was allowed and desirable.

Two User Scenarios were created relating to the two personas created earlier in order to ground our concept in the findings of our user study. A Service Blueprint also accompanies our concept as we attempted to understand the systems and stakehholders that would need to be involved for the concept to function properly. In the same light our Concept Roadmap supports the feasibility of our design by enabling us to understand the concept over time. 4.8 Final User Review To receive some concluding critique from the users and to provide them with a sense of closure, we presented the refined concept to the users on the final week of the project. Apart from being able to reflect on the project, the users were also able to provide important insights on the greyer areas of the concept such as financing, desirable commitment levels and management by the community.

5. Reflections 5.1 On The Process As introduced in Section 1 our journey began watching Taking Woodstock, a film dealing with young people and ideals. Ironically our process ended with a concept designed for approximately the same generation, now in the midst of old age. Stranger yet, our early critque of the Anni&Fanni publicity campaign at the Forum shopping centre also seems to have come full circle; our design solution appealing to the exact same desire to humanise and personalise ubiquitous public space. Process can often be lost in the attempt to sell the final solution with high impact visualisations and renders. User Inspired Design practice views the process as a calculatable part of the solution, if not an outcome in its own right. In terms of this projectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s process we were both motivated and limitated by the respective freedoms and confinements of being in the greater process of learning. With these considerations in mind, we focussed deeply on our selected user group whilst also balancing this with theory and often satisfyingly profound discussion. Such balancing acts in a group situation can sometimes prove to be difficult. Important in our process was the focus on learning new techniques, theories and skills relating to User Inspired Design and also public space. Our playful approach to ideation including a lot of wordplay, random musings and witty drawings that helped in maintaining the idea

flow, which would have perhaps been impossible without this. Despite all group members being familiar to some extent with the processes of User Inspired Design, this project provided us all with a much deeper experience. Sustaining a close relationship with the user group was key in this. We were almost sad to say goodbye to them for the last time: truly empathic design, one could say. As well as developing meaningful relationships, the experience of working with a user group provided valuable tangibility to our process and a ready means to validate our thinking. Each hypothesis and decision was thoroughly discussed within the team, tested in conversation with the user group, discussed further in the studio and then decisions were made democratically. As in any project, we did face some difficulty in managing our time particularly where users were involved, but the teams dedication and willingness to invest time to the project rendered these almost negligable. The feeling of uncertainty we were warned about in the early stages of the project reared its head from time to time, wearing the group down and raising stress levels. The team managed this by acknowledging anxiety honestly and figuring out ways around them. Techniques we developed to combat these problems included allowing time for both group and individual thinking

and brainstorming and setting our own deadlines on a daily basis. The way in which we occupied a working space in the Piazza that is the UIAH studio was also found to be extremely motivating for the group, whilst also being useful in ensuring that data and work was always stuck on the wall . This also created physical evidence of ambient human presence, so important in the reasoning behind our project, and to our own process. Ambient human presence in our process was also experienced virtually as we used a blog to share thoughts and inspirations along with an online server application to share documents. Whenever working individually on the computer we were aware of each others work as files were uploaded or updated. These simple tools proved to be efficient and useful, both for working and building confidence in the team and project. 5.2 On Methods Methods used in our user study (see Section 2) proved suitable for our purposes of the project, despite the huge array of alternative directions that might have been taken. We feel that our process was heavily supported by theories from writers like Ray Oldenburg and Jan Gehl and that without this support, the project might have ended up addressing only the narrow user group we studied. While we see in-depth user studies of one specific group as extremely

useful to design, our interest in the relevant literature and thinking from the early phases of the module, however, meant that we could not ignore the larger possibilities and the impact of our design solution. In addition to in-situ interviews and observations, a lot of significance was given to the probe study as a crucial part of our research. Whether our probe was a design probe or, in fact, a cultural probe is not entirely clear due to the experimental nature of the study. We can, however, be content in the knowledge that findings from the probes, that would not have otherwise arisen in interviews alone, had huge influence in shaping the final design. The study yielded of course, somewhat ambiguous results addressing a broad range of issues, but coverage of the usersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; personalities and needs came through strongly. Our concept was probably steered towards a service design and social innovation direction as we perceived most needs and values (see Section 3) to be better addressed through these than products. Sensitizing the user group to the methods we wished to investigate proved difficult. They were not used to working with conceptual ideas but expressed frustration when any sensitizing activity was introduced, perceiving them as childish and a waste of time. 5.3 On the Concept Our concept arises from the conclusion that the elderly people in Tapiola are being isolated from the

society in the Service Centre. This is an especially large problem for our user group, as being still healthy and relatively active, they can expect to age faster if provided no opportunity to associate with younger age groups (see Section 3.4). We see several reasons for this. First of all, Finnish society has changed radically during the last five to six decades from an agricultural one to an urban one. As people have moved from the countryside to the cities, a need has risen for Service Centres to cater to the concentration of elderly people. In the light of the evidence, this segmentation increases the health risks for the elderly. Thus, this probably is not the best way to deal with the issue. Secondly, according to Oldenburg, women have traditionally been excluded from life in public space. We also witnessed this in our observations as we saw more aging men in public than women, and accordingly more women using the Service Centre in Tapiola. On a grander level, Oldenburg suggests ambient human presence and self-regulation to be healthy for urban societies. As societies in developed countries shift towards an older population, development of this kind of projects is needed, and is fortunately already occuring on a small scale. One example is the Southwark Circle in the U.K. designed by Participle, a social innovation company. This is also proof for our own conceptâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s relevance and viability. Our concept was seen as desirable and positive by our user group, but

when asked to co-ideate on how this kind of service could be funded, organized, managed and where; excited discussion petered out. They had difficulty in imagining other alternatives to existing structures, revealing their need and desires for authorities to intervene in the organisation of their activities. The reason for this is unclear: exclusion from society as women; premature aging for a lack of stimuli or simply habit? Our concept seeks to challenge these issues whilst being beneficial for the users and the wider-community. 5.4 On the Team Capabilities Although our team was multicultural, multidisciplinary and multi-skilled, we found that in the finalisation phase of our project we were lacking business knowledge. The concept could be rendered more credible and finalised if its financing could be further considered. For the purposes of the project we had to rely on our own reasoning and assumptions on possibilities in the business realm of the concept. Idea generation was not a problem. Assessing their viability, however, proved a constant challenge.

Project Concept

3P. Kolmas Paikka The concept we arrived at was named simply Kolmas Paikka, after the project group name which is a translation of Ray Oldenburgâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;sâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Third Placeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; in Finnish. The name embodies the idea of a place where the active elderly ladies in Tapiola can transit between home and the Service Centre. Our concept seeks to provide a transparent, self-regulated place to help bring the elderly of Tapiola community together whilst integrating different groups of people. The idea allows users to take ownership of a place, particularly unused niches, by interacting with each

other whether in casual activities or through conversation. The concept offers a form of semi-public space called Kolmas Paikka, where the social relationships made helps sustain and maintain the place on a functional and emotional level with the interplay of ambient human presence to increase the feeling of community. This is achieved through providing self-regulatory facilities for communal activities such as coffee mornings and craft sessions as well as for activities more associated with the home such as cooking, baking and cleaning to allow the users to spend more of

their time in the company of others. Based on the age of our users and the circumstantial evidence of the location and the current activities, we proposed a concept that has a low technology level entry point. The concept seeks to primarily involve people, get them interested in the concept and then implement further touchpoints and modifications at a later stage, especially regarding technology and connectivity. We also developed details that could exist within the space such as the Kolmas Paikka Board that could be used as a stimulus for making contact with a wider group of people

in the community as people share skills and announce activities. Our earlier observations in Tapiola revealed some empty shop spaces in Heikintori that left this community space feeling old and uncared for. We saw this as a good, highly visible starting point for our concept. This would hopefully also be commercially viable due to the benefits to the shopping centre in terms of increased footfall.

Left: Kolmas Paikka occupying unused public space to bring it to life with the ambient presence of human activity and a sense of ownership within the community.

Pictured: Possible future vision for the Kolmas Paikka with a specifically designed space in the heart of community activity. Transparency and visibility encourage the involvement of all age groups in the community.

Scenario 1: Tyyne and Grandchildren

There is going to be a christmas sale in the primary school where three of Tyyne’s grandchildren go to. They have asked Granny to help in baking a few sweet pies for their stall.

On Tuesday, after getting groceries, Tyyne pops in to KolmasPaikka to see, if she could reserve the kitchen facilities for Thursday. There is room, but she also notices that Mirjami is going to bake some sodabread and muffins on Friday around

Tyyne puts a note on the billboard beside Mirjami’s note announcing that She could join her with three kids. She asks in the note if Mirjami would like to use some rasberries in the muffins as well, because the sweet pies will be having those, and Tyyne’s freezer is still full of them from last summer.

3 o’clock. “But that’s fantastic”, Tyyne thinks. “The kids could come here straight after school, and get home before dinner time. I was thinking about teaching them a muffin recipe sometime, but now they could learn it from Mirjami.”

Wednesday morning, Mirjami drops in to have a cup of coffee at the KolmasPaikka, and notices Tyyne’s tag. “Great, it’s so nice to bake together! Especially with kids, they always have all those crazy ideas.” Mirjami finds Tyyne’s mobile phone number in the phonebook including some profile information, and texts her:

Left and facing: Scenarios and related Service Evidencing used to present the Kolmas Paikka concept “Rasberries would be great. I can share my spelt flour as well, it’s very healthy! See you on Fri, -Mirjami.”

Nimi: Ammatti:

Scenario 2: Helmi and Kerttu

Kiinnostukset:

Nimi:

Ammatti:

Kiinnostukset:

Nimi:

Helmi has been slightly sick for over a week, and is finally getting better. She hasn’t been talking with anybody in 5 days, and is desperately seeking for company.

She decides to go to visit the Kolmas Paikka living room to see what’s going on in the world and hopes to meet some familiar faces there.

Helmi doesn’t know Kerttu very well - she has just sat a few times with her in a same table at the living room. “Kerttu does seem so nice, though. I’d better call her straight away.”

Helmi goes to the phone book, and picks up the handset of the common phone. The ladies agree on meeting at the lobby of Sellosali in two hours. “I do adore Chopin’s preludes! Maybe this is a start for a new friendship?”

On Saturday afternoon the place is a bit quiet, so she goes straight to scan the billboard. “Oh, but this is great”, she sighs. “Kerttu is having an extra concert ticket for tonight for Sellosali”.

Service Blueprint

Concept Roadmap

y. Project Bibliography Although not intended to be comprehensive, we list here some important theoretical influences on our project:

The Great Good Place Ray Oldenburg’s book gave us a lot of insight about public places and casual interaction, and also the term “the Third Place”. Oldenburg, R., (1999), The great good place: cafés, coffee shops, bookstores, bars, hair salons, and other hangouts at the heart of a community. 4th edition. Cambridge: Da Capo Press

Design Probes Tuuli’s book about design probes gave us (in addition to her lectures) a lot of insight about how to use probes as a method for user research. Mattelmäki, T., (2006). Design probes. Doctoral Dissertation. University of Art and Design Helsinki, Finland (PDF-version)

Life Between Buildings Jan Gehl’s book about life in public surroundings, and the different viewpoints and factors introduced in it, inspired our concept. Gehl, J., (1980).Life Between Buildings, Using Public Space. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold

Reclaiming Public Space This article gave us some inspiring thoughts about the regulation and commercialisation of public spaces. Eriksson E., Riisgaard Hansen, T. and Lykke-Olesen, A., (2007). Reclaiming public space: designing for public interaction with private devices. In Proceedings of the 1st international conference on Tangible and embedded interaction (TEI-07), pages 31-38

Design for Experiencing This article deals with the early development phases of tools for user inspired design and sheds light on the theoretical background of these whilst highlighting the benefit of their use. Sanders, E.B.-N. & Dandavate, U. (1999) Design for Experiencing: New tools. In Proceedings of the first international conference on design and emotion, TU Delft, Delft. The Netherlands, 87-92.

Intimacy in the City Intimacy in the city explores the complex issue of creating intimate experiences in public spaces in order to strengthen human interaction, as well as making public focal points more meaningful for their dwellers. Battarbee, K., Baerten, N., Hinfelaar, M., Irvine,P., Loeber, S. Munro, A. and Pederson, T. (2002). Pools and Satellites: Intimacy in the City, In Proceedings of DIS 2002, ACM Press

z. Acknowledgements The Kolmas Paikka team would like to thank the following: The course leaders, Professor Tuuli Mattelm채ki and Professor Turkka Keinonen as well as project tutors Kirsikka Vaajakallio, Jung-Joo Lee, Sandra Vina and Salu Ylirisku. Jukka Vieno and all other guest lecturers also deserve our thanks.

We are indebted to our user group Aino, Eila, Esteri, Evi, Lilli and Tuula for their good will and enthusiasm in participating in this project. Their contribution made all this possible. All participating students on the UID module receive our thanks as well for the inspiring discussions and quality of company.