Design and research report

Design and Research goal In my original planning I wanted to focus on making people switch from using a car to an other more sustainable mode of transport like the bike or public transportation. I started working on that topic trying to focus on why people choose for using the car instead of the bike, and in my rst idea I wanted to make them reect by themselves about which was the most efficient way that suits their situation the best. After some time researching this topic looking mainly on the Internet, I realized that it was too broad and I had to narrow it down a bit. while I was a bit stuck, without knowing where to go, I discovered a photographic

project by Thomas Jackson about emerging behavior within a society, I was impressed by his work and the use of particles system to express the concept and I decided to go deeper in to the topic. I started thinking about the emergent behaviors related to mobility, looking especially at the history of the dutch cycling paths, I realized how much a strong group of people can make a change happens. From this my design goal changed a bit from make people use a sustainable way of transportation, towards something more related to social behavior: I want to enhance the group bonding between people that live the mobility in the city in a sustainable way, and i want to make them aware of the other people that act in the same way. In a way, the main goal remain the same, in this way Im not tackling the problem directly, but more from the side, in fact I think that by showing the existence of a big group of people that believe in a

sustainable way of transportation, that cycle or take the bus instead of using the car, other people can be motivated to act in the same way and became part of the group. Institution in the end can be more motivated in considering that lifestyle in their mobility development plans. I think this project can ts really well in a lot of Italian city, where the use of the car is still the most used way of transportation but a strong movement of urban bikers is growing. After I realized which direction to take, I started looking at the behaviors between people in a group, I tried to focus especially at groups with really weak links between the people, like motorcyclist that wave at each other when the cross on a road, like people that help each other during a trekking, or like between group of neighbors . What does make them feel part of a group and how I can make my target group feel like part of a group are the main question I need to answer .

Design and Research Activities In the rst cycle I mainly reected on one symbol that was emblematic of all the group I analyzed, the hand waving. In my intervention I tried to stimulate a hand wave between people to happen. During the rst intervention I was in Rotterdam and I decided to start waving at random people on the street and look at the reaction. Just one people out of 20 wave me back, most of them where looking at me trying to understand what was wrong with me, and some were even scared. Why if Im doing jogging and I wave at somebody that I cross on my way, is it

normal, and if I wave at random people in the street it is so weird? I taught that maybe a stronger connection between people was needed to make it happen, in every group discussed before, is always visible the characteristic of the people that are part of the group, (same clothes, same activity, etc..). I taught that maybe if i try to trigger a simple wave between people riding their bikes on a cycling path, would be a lot easier. For this reason I prepared my second intervention: I built some sign to stick along a bike lane, asking people to wave at the next people they see on the lane. The intervention was even less successful than the previous one, none of the people that passed by reacted at my hint. Everybody read the sign but the only people that waved did it at me because they saw that I was lming them. I hanged the signs just for a couple of hour in front of the faculty, but I should have left the sign for a longer time, and maybe after some days they might work, I think is the classic example where you just need somebody that start, and then could be a snowball effect. Results My intervention until now were not really effective, but because the main purpose of them was to research some behavior, I think in a way they still lead me to some results: 1) if you wave at random people on the street they can feel it weird because they dont understand why are you doing so, what do you want from me?, do I know him? are all reasonable question that somebody can ask himself when somebody you dont know wave at you. 2) From the observation, I saw how, to feel part of a group you need some really visible characteristics, the group in a way has an image and every component of the group has to reect it, people that ride xed bike inspired by bike messenger show that in every aspect of their behavior, the bike with stickers, the bag, the clothes, everything; is the same for skateboarder, or for street artists, they have a similar outt, so they can recognize each other.

But this is not always true, in fact for example i wave at my neighbors even if they dont know them. 3) Because I want to focus on emergent group, maybe the dutch situation where already a big amount of people move themselves by bike is not the perfect target for my project, or maybe I have to nd a subgroup between the group. 4) something unexpected can create a link between people that in that moment are close to each other, for example when some car driver does an infraction against a cyclist, the people around him try to help him or just comment the fact. Conclusions I spend most of the time of the rst cycle in collecting general knowledge on the theme and trying to nd the right way to go. In the next cycle Ill try to enhance the group bonding between urban cyclist, Ill try to enrich their daily cycling experience, especially when they are in a group. A possible direction for the project could be to develop some kind of multi-player game, or just a very basic interaction that occur when a group of cyclist are together on the lane. Id like to motivate them to stay in a group and activate the interaction. Lorenzo Romagnoli