Megan Braley Design

Megan Braley, M.I.D. Industrial Designer, Researcher and Communications Strategist 832.661.9837 megandesign@meganbraley.com www.meganbraley.com

As a designer, I am committed to helping people and organizations work better together.

Projects and Research » Growlots Philadelphia » Growlots Farm Centers » Philadelphia Green Kitchen Project » Postgreen Homes » Texas Society of Architects » Murals Against Crime

Growlots Philadelphia Through a partnership with Philadelphia’s Department of Parks and Recreation, my team and I developed a strategy to improve communication within Philadelphia’s urban agriculture movement.

Addressing a Wicked Problem How can design help reduce competition and enable collaboration for gardeners, farmers, nonprofits, and local government?

Philadelphia’s urban agriculture movement has been gaining momentum for the past 40 years. Throughout this period, new organizations have been developing rapidly, and an increasing number of individuals have become interested in growing in the city. However, the movement’s stakeholders have continuously struggled to create the unified voice necessary to push citywide initiatives forward.

To better understand the issues blocking collaboration, my team and I collected exploratory data through literature reviews, fieldwork, interviews, and contextual research. These investigative activities exposed the system’s underlying problems.

This diagram illustrates how the initial excitement felt by people entering the urban agriculture movement soon subsides to the realities of sustaining one’s efforts in a competition over limited resources.

Observation Revealed

Research Revealed

Interviewing Revealed

• Current efforts are fragmented, redundant, and inefficient.

• Fragmentation prevents people from finding and using the numerous resources available to them.

• Histories and reputations are preventing open communication.

• The realities of sustaining oneself leads to competition over limited resources.

• A centralized hub is necessary to organize all of the available resources.

• A need for The Power of Coordinated Efforts, the ability to put WHAT is being accomplished before WHO is contributing the work.

Observing Group Dynamics and Encouraging Participatory Design Through a series of interviews and focus group meetings, my team and I developed a number of tools to help our stakeholders prioritize the problems facing the city’s urban agriculture development, while simultaneously working together to propose solutions.

During each meeting we used dialogue mapping and brainstorm activities to keep the conversation on track. We also observed each of our participants to gain a better understanding of the emotions and attitudes present in each meeting.

It soon became clear that the existing fragmentation had made it nearly impossible for our stakeholders to visualize their contributions as a collective effort.

Brainstorm Activities Discussion Cards Encouraged Participation

These cards not only helped our stakeholders direct the meeting’s discussion, they also simultaneously exposed the urban agriculture system’s underlying problem. Every single person avoided recognizing I n t e g r a t i v e D e v e l o p m e n t as the main problem.

Garden Visits Created a Relaxed Environment for More Open Discussion

Synthesizing Data: Resolving Key Problems To reduce the existing fragmentation and encourage collaboration, we equalized the movement’s resources by organizing them based on their functions and roles within a system, not their developers.

Finding Land

Growing Gardens & Farms

Composting

Planting Fruit Trees

Keeping Bees

Maps showing growers the land available for growing, as well as areas to volunteer.

Courses and guides outlining methods of growing food in urban environments.

Guides, and certification courses for composting in Philadelphia.

Guides on fruit-tree production, and methods for maintaining urban orchards.

Workshops and classes on methods for building hives and caring for bees.

We also wrote, designed, and published a book outlining our process, and extensive research.

Marketing Your Goods

Distributing Your Goods

Meeting Your Peers

Impacting Teens & Adults

Advancing Children

Assistance and consulting for market start-up, and market assessment guides.

Methods for handling and packaging your goods, and locations for distribution venues.

Meeting locations, online networks, and methods for publicizing your message

In-school programs and internships for teens.

Programs, plans and resources for adults.

In-school and extracurricular programs for healthy eating and growing food.

Growlots Philadelphia is a dynamic, living, online networking communication tool that bridges individual efforts, groups, organizations, and departments, to create a cohesive, unified voice for Philadelphia’s urban agriculture system.

Growlots Farm Centers An intense, five-week project, where I co-led a team of eight students in a collaborative effort to design a cohesive plan to transform vacant lots into productive Farm Centers.

Together We Can Growlots Philadelphia is home to over 40,000 vacant lots. The Kensington community is one of the poorest areas in Philadelphia, and home to a majority of the city’s blighted land. In recent years, Philadelphia has become interested in utilizing urban agriculture as a means of development for the city’s overwhelming amount of vacant land.

My team and I began this project with an interest in using urban agriculture to transform vacant lots into food access points throughout the Kensington area.

To better understand the current condition of the Kensington community, my team and I photographed the area, observed local gardens, and interviewed community members. We continued our interviewing process by meeting with Garden and Agricultural Program Directors, and Government Officials.

After compiling our collected research, we began intensive brainstorm sessions to synthesize our data into the key needs shared by each group: Community Members

Gardens & Agri-Programs

• Build Community • Better Nutrition

• More Effective Communication

• Create a Place for Youths

• Cataloguing Information for the Next Generation

• Increase the Amount of Food Nearby • Beautification of Neighborhoods

Communication Jobs

Beautification

• Connecting Students from Agri-Programs to Jobs of Interest

Develop Vacant Lots

Office of Sustainability • Increase Urban Agriculture Initiatives • More Community Gardens/Farms • Increase Local Foods in Cornerstores • Transform Vacant Lots into Gardens • Publicize Local Food Sources • Expand Neighborhood Markets

Information Mapping We created a number of maps to visualize the connections and overlapping areas of our research.This initial process led us to develop a series of diagrams that presented our concept and collected data clearly and concisely.

Managing Assets Tools for Rent

Gardening Skills

Gardening Skills Knowledge

Managing Assets Compost in Exchange Portion of Crops

Knowledge

Recruiting Volunteers

Recruiting Volunteers

Services

Communication

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Communication

Growlots Farm Centers will act as central hubs for organizing food production, developing garden networks, creating green jobs, community building, and education. The Farm Center will connect with local restaurants, businesses, and schools, in order to improve food accessibility and healthy living,

Conceptual Design .

Farm Centers include Office Space for meetings, accounting, and payroll management; Storage Space for tools, seeds, plant containers, tarps, netting, garden posts, etc.; an on-site Educational Garden; High Tunnels to extend the growing season; and an on-site Greenhouse for growing starter plants before the growing season begins.

Who would work at a Farm Center?

Through our research, we determined that four specific positions would be necessary to keep a Farm Center running smoothly.

• Farm/Garden Supervisor In charge of monitoring and coordinating all of the work being accomplished by the Farm Center • Information Specialist In charge of managing all volunteers and PR material • Garden/Farm Coordinator Responsible for monitoring all work taking place at the Farm Center’s adjacent gardens • Retail Manager Responsible for keeping the Farm Center’s retail area organized

Farm/Garden Supervisor

Farm/Garden Supervisor

Information Specialist

The Information Specialist

Garden/ Farm Coordinator Farm/Garden Coordinator

Retail Manager

Retail Manager

Philadelphia Green Kitchen Project A strategy for addressing the wasteful behaviors that take place in the kitchen.

Our Kitchens Connect Us to the World I worked with a team of five graduate students on a four-month, extensive study of the kitchen environment. Our project recognized that while developments in green technologies and green materials have become the newest trend in the kitchen industry, using green resources alone will only create temporary change. Lasting change will occur only through social innovations that impact people’s wasteful habits within the kitchen space.

During our contextual studies of historical kitchens, current events, and global issues, my team and I determined that many green kitchens are ineffective because they lack a concomitant modification of the wasteful behaviors characteristic of most kitchen users.

Through numerous interviews, user analyses, and extensive ideation sessions, we observed a striking parallel between wasteful kitchen habits and environmentally damaging global habits.

One day, during an unforgettable ideation session, I remember pausing for a moment and noticing that we had written the words food and culture next to each other. And then all of sudden it struck me, that our culture is a product of the food we eat. And the food we eat is often overly processed, a result of our production system, which developed from our one-time-use consumer mentality. And this very mentality is what has led to our waste and resource crisis.The connections kept building until somewhere in the muddle of words and the smell of dry erase markers, a circle had formed, and the kitchen was in the middle of all of it. The kitchen had transformed into an ecosystem with resources cycling in and out, and our challenge was to make it a much healthier ecosystem.

Identifying Systems Our understanding of the interactions between the world and the resources cycling in and out of the kitchen, led us to identify nine areas that impact the kitchen environment and our behavior within this space.

Our four-month project resulted in the development of a strategy for placing visual reminders within the kitchen space to inform people of their actions. We concluded that once people are informed of their damaging behaviors, they become more aware of their actions and are more likely to make an effort to change the way in which they manage their resources.

Food Culture Philadelphia’s Mayor Nutter has a platform that focuses on environmental issues.

Policy

Pay-As-You-Throw systems have been used in parts of the U.S. since the 1920’s. They became more popular in the 1990’s.

Murals are an icon of Philadelphia.

New murals could be designed with recycling and green living in mind.

Teaching new habits for a healthy body and environment to promote resource management.

Education is a key component of working towards the reduction of waste.

Provide information in many languages.

Before the 1950’s,America depended on local farms.

Today, we depend on extremely large, industrialized farms.

Production

The food system contributes 37% of the total greenhouse gases produced.

Our food contains unhealthy levels of preservatives and additives.

Planned obsolescence Plastic contains dangerous chemicals: BPA, DEHA, Styrene.

Food Progress

The majority of food products contain at least one part made from plastic.

Products

Many of the products we buy and bring into the kitchen are harmful rather than helpful.

A new curriculum for green living must be taught to elementary to post graduate students.

Education

Re-Learning

Habits

Perceived obsolescence We feel the need to constantly buy new products.

Modular components create more storage space and versatility.

Versatility creates more options which can help eliminate the need to buy new items.

Modularity

Consumer Habits

We buy foods covered in layers of packaging.

Flexibility

We must retrofit (update) the mind in order to learn new habits within our kitchen that will help us adapt to a new ‘greener,’ healthier world.

Designers have already designed green products and meters in an effort to rectify our wasteful habits, but many of them have gone by without being utilized on a large scale.

A leaking faucet can waste 30 gallons per day.

Waste Update

Track

Approximately 99% of the things we consume are discarded within 6 months of purchase.

There are 3, 091 landfills today.

How can you conserve what you don’t know you are wasting?

Over 60% of the world’s resources have been used up.

The refrigerator consumes 10-17% of household electricity.

The microwave consumes 2-4% household electricity.

The stove consumes 10-12% of household energy.

The dishwasher uses 8-15 gallons of water per cycle and 2-5% of household energy.

Retrofitting

Metering

Waste and Resource Management

Postgreen Homes I worked in collaboration with Nic Darling, the Chief Marketing Officer, and Chad Ludeman, the Company President, to design an “Extreme Green Kitchen� concept for their energy-efficient homes.

Collaborating with Postgreen’s Core Buyers

Kitchen Design

As we researched and developed our design, we posted various entries on the company’s blog in order to gain valuable insight from their followers. Postgreen’s numerous subscribers were an incredible resource, that we used as a tool to co-design with the community.

Helping Homeowners Cook Green and Clean My team and I not only focused on the design of the kitchen, we also focused on the kitchen’s place within the continuous cycle of growth.

We developed a three-pronged system that made it fast and easy to dispose of waste sustainably, reduced indoor toxins, and saved clients money.We also incorporated modularity and adaptability in our kitchen design, to fit the small and compact nature of Postgreen’s homes.

Waste Equals Food Our three-part system connected efficient storage, a backyard garden, and a composting unit located under the kitchen sink. Food scraps that are usually thrown away and wasted, are placed in the composting unit to be transformed into nutrient rich soil, which is then added back to the garden to “feed” the existing soil and produce. This system creates a closed-loop cycle, which draws inspiration from the concept of “Waste Equals Food,” developed by William McDonough.

Texas Society of Architects “Portfolio” Pages written and designed for the Texas Architect magazine.

Inspiring Architects The Texas Architect magazine has been awarded many times for its graphic design and editorial accomplishments.

The magazine features newly completed projects by Texas architects, as well as current events taking place in the architectural world.

I had the opportunity to work as the Editorial/Design Intern at the Texas Society of Architects from June of 2007 through May of 2008. I wrote and designed the magazine’s Por tfolio pages, which showcase recently completed inspiring projects. I worked alongside Andrea Exter, the Director of Communications and Publisher of Texas Architect; Julio Pizzo, the Design Manager and Art Director of Texas Architect; and Stephen Sharpe, the Editor of Texas Architect.

September/October 2007 Project: Memorial Hermann Medical Plaza, Houston Client: Mischer Healthcare Services Architect: Kirksey “The new 31-story addition to the Texas Medical Center (TMC) offers 500,000-sf of retail, ambulator y surger y, and professional office space to an area that previously lacked adequate lease space for physicians. In addition to solving that problem, Houston-based Kirksey has created a focal point for the TMC skyline. Located at the intersections of Fannin, Main, and McGregor, the building’s design fits an 11-story parking garage, 15 floors of doctor’s suites, and 2 floors of a 100,000-sf Ambulatory Surgery Care Center into a tightly packed area.

Kirksey’s unique design incorporates an illuminated crown that at night becomes a beacon of changing colors. The center includes the Roger Clemens Institute for Sports Medicine, the Memorial Hermann Breast Center, and the Memorial Hermann Imaging Center. Kirksey effectively integrated the new building into the Texas Medical Center through the use of skybridges that connect the new tower to surrounding buildings, including the Hermann Professional Building to its west and the UT Professional Building to its south.”

by Megan Braley

Murals Against Crime A study exploring the connections between murals and lowered crime.

Mural Arts Program Today, Philadelphia is the world capital of murals. Upon entering the city, murals can be seen at every corner. Initially, the murals appear to be a form of city beautification. However, after researching The Mural Arts Program (MAP ), the organization responsible for creating many of the city’s murals, it is clear that the murals have a deeper meaning. For the past 25 years, MAP has used murals as a method for combating Philadelphia’s high crime rate. When beginning a new mural, the program encourages the involvement of inmates at local correctional facilities, troubled youths, and community members, in order to create a collective ownership of the mural that ensures it will not be destroyed by graffiti in the future.

“In the 25 years MAP has operated, over 2,850 murals have been created, and only 6 murals have been defaced.”

Mapping the System A partner and I became interested in studying the relationship between murals and crime more closely. We felt that if we were able to prove the effectiveness of MAP’s initiative by visually mapping the connection between murals and lowered crime, other cities battling crime could benefit from MAP’s work by utilizing the model they offer.

To examine the entire system, we mapped our collected data on three scales: • Citywide • By Zip Code • A Two-Block Radius

We compiled our research and conclusions in a city guide entitled, “Murals Against Crime.”

Philadelphia

MURALS AGAINST CRIME

Citywide Examination Our first step was to map the general location of murals and crime throughout Center City, so that we could visualize the areas where murals and crime overlapped.

Murals to Date

Crime in 2008

21 Figurative

17 Cultural 26 Robberies

60 Thefts

19 Social Concern

5 Abstract

N 35th St.

Vin e

9 Portrait

28 Landscape

Murals were divided into eight categories based on their content. and were compared to the four most common crimes occurring in Center City during a six month period in 2008.

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The types of crimes included: thefts, robberies, burglaries, and assaults.

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Investigating Zip Code Zones Next, we studied individual zip code zones to further examine the relationship between the amount of crime in an area, and the number of murals created to combat that crime.

19147 # of murals per year

social concern

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

portrait

cultural

landscape

history

figurative

abstract

youth

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

# of crimes per year

3500 3000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0

thefts

robberies

burglaries

assaults

For each zip code in Center City, we mapped the number of crimes occurring each year from 1999 through 2006, and compared that to the number of murals created each year from 1999 through 2006. We chose to look at these eight years because they offered the most accurate crime rate documentation.

# of murals per year

10 9 8 7 6 5 Our zip code research showed that in most cases, more murals4were developed in the zip code zones with the highest crime.We also3found that in all of the zip code zones we studied, the crime rate steadily 2 decreased over the eight year period we had examined.

1 To better understand the relationship between crime levels 0 and

Analyzing Crime/Mural Relation in a Two-Block Radius

nearby murals, we chose one mural from each zip code to examine 1999 more closely. We mapped the crime in the specific location over a 6-month period before and after the mural was created.

6 mo. period in 1999

We found that in each of the cases, the addition of a mural significantly lowered crime in the surrounding area.

2000

2001

2002

2001

2003

2004

2005

2006

6 mo. period in 2008

south st.

12th st.

12th st.

south st.

Spirit of Creativity 1210 South St.

From 1999 to 2006

13 murals & 18,874 crimes occured in19147