Wishing Wall
Purpose: We want our placemaking process to be community-driven, therefore a Wishing Wall is created for all members of the campus community to share ideas, layering them together with flyers for activities, societies and art. It is also key our placemaking is responsive and adapts over time, and therefore this Wishing Wall will stay and hopefully evolve over time in response to a changing campus.
Intervention
This will be a wall created from boards of plywood with a heavy base structure, which will stand at the entrance to Tin Alley. Along its base will be stacks of repurposed tires joined together and placed at intervals filled with drawing media encouraging people to share their ideas and layer them on top of each other directly on the wall. This will be erected before the semester, and there will be paid students there throughout the day to encourage passers-by to share their thoughts and inspirations for Tin Alley’s development. The listening wall will also be a good canvassing tool to pre-empt any conflict and can be used to conduct a conflict analysis (Nursey-Bray, M. J, 2019).
Sensitive to Nature
Instead of doing paper surveys, the use of erasable drawing media (e.g. chalk and blackboard) and digital platforms are not only more interesting in terms of engagement, but also more sustainable for the environment.
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image from: https://www.leezair.com/blog/my-life-wish-is/
Corona Virus Response
The repurposed tires along the base of the Wishing Wall will be placed at intervals of 1.5 meters, to ensure adequate distance between people whilst engaging.
How is it happening?
This is an easily implementable intervention that doesn’t require a large amount of resources or labour but contributes greatly to the proposal. Initially, the wishing wall is intended to last for a week, however, if there is more engagement than foreseen, it could be held up until the completion of Phase 2. In terms of costs, all that is required are 5 standard large plywoods panels (1200 mm x 810 mm, $14 each), plus coloured thick chalks ($18 a pack). Recycled panels can be a cheaper and more sustainable alternative.
Evaluation
The wishing wall acts as a way of evaluating the overall project in Tin Alley by receiving feedback throughout the project with qualitative responses and quantitative data. The evaluation of the wishing wall itself can be measured by the amount of responses and the quality of responses.
