Week 10

Challenge

This week we want you to identify a theme or issue that relates to your locality and present your findings on the Ideas Wall, prior to the design phase.

1. Design and produce a visual summary to contextualise your issue and project brief. Your summary can be a digital, print or moving image, but it must be succinct, to enable third party viewers to quickly understand the requirements, needs and challenges.

Initial ideas

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Issues locating to my locality

1. Recycling scheme – the recycling and waste scheme is a really big issue here as we have one green waste bin, and then a blue recycling box for glass. There is nothing protecting the black sack bin bags/transparent recycling bags for paper/plastic/tins/cardboard when they go outside. This is a problem particularly when residents leave their rubbish out overnight (rules do say to not put out before and foxes have ripped open the bags. I’m a keen gardener and love to keep the front two areas of garden tidy and weed free, however a neighbour put a bag full of polystyrene balls out overnight which got ripped open and blew across the street. It’s now 6 months later and I’m still finding these little white foam balls everywhere – I wish there was something that could have prevented this!

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1. Empty buildings since the pandemic – I have seen a number of small shops and businesses close as the high street relies on sales to pay for the buildings. Interestingly, they aren’t being replaced and this could be for a number of reasons (most likely businesses are working from home/an uncertain economy at the moment from the pandemic) however what if these empty buildings became an art gallery, a working hub, a coffee shop pop-up, festival food pop-up? There would be so much opportunity for businesses who wanted to expand their market reach to hire out the building for X amount of time.
2. Poor signage for nature trails – From being a keen photographer/explorer of the countryside and my surroundings I have noticed there is a lack of trails and signage for pathways. For instance, in Woburn deer park there are routes but it’s not clear where these routes even are. There aren’t clear footpaths on grassy fields, and it would be so important to stick to the correct trails and not disturb the wildlife particularly during breeding/rutting season with the deers. I could create a way-finding system that would inform and guide visitors/explorers along the correct trails.
3. Full post boxes – Just a small issue I have experienced since the pandemic with an increase of posted parcels and letters from Milton Keynes. I have gone out late at night approx. 9pm to leave a parcel in a ‘drop-off’ post box, however it’s completely full. I had to drive 5 miles to the next post box – obviously I am fortunate that I had that luxury whereas if someone specifically went to their post box who had no other means of travel (cycling or walking for instance!) this would cause inconvenience. I’d propose to create an interactive toolkit like the digital car parks, which tells you when your local post boxes are full for convenience.

Chosen brief – nature trail

Brief – 200 words:

“From being a keen photographer/explorer of the countryside and my surroundings I have noticed over the years there is a lack of trails and signage for pathways in my local areas, but also in most parks too. A good example is Woburn deer park; the grounds have routes but it’s not clear where these routes even are as some posts have disappeared along the paths. There aren’t clear footpaths on grassy fields, and it would be so important to stick to the correct trails and not disturb the wildlife particularly during breeding/rutting season with the deers. Another reason for this project proposal is to protect plants such as bluebells that cannot be trodden on – as when disturbed they take years to grow back.
I am proposing a way-finding system that would inform and guide visitors/explorers along the correct trails. These trails should be informative, targeted at all ages and not obstructive to the environment in any way. This proposed countryside toolkit will need to consist of (at the very least) signage, maps, and an engaging activity trail. Navigational guidance should not be difficult to comprehend, and safety needs to be prioritised.”

Research

To better understand my audience I wanted to research about what trails do already exist in my area, and who the audience is for those. There is a Parks Trust who host walks too so this would be interesting to explore:

Woof Walks

Group dog walks in Milton Keynes, who guide you and your dog through various parks. This one was particularly useful as the Woof Walks have identified what parks are leash friendly and what parks aren’t.

Here’s two PDF’s for info:

MK Walking for Health

Various walks around Milton Keynes that link up to Redways (red cycle/walk friendly paths):

Self guided walks

Woodland trust

To see what they have on their website that would give me more information in terms of my audience:

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Writing up the pitch:

Requirements –

• At least 5 trails in the toolkit, ranging in lengths of time for children and adults
• A signage system
• At least one map per trail (for each person, notwithstanding children) for guidance
• To be user friendly and appropriate for all ages – even those without a smart phone!
• The trail should be safe for others interacting with the trail such as horse riders
• Protect the wildlife through raising awareness
• Encourage visitors to the area to benefit local business

Challenges

• How do we introduce dog friendly trails into leash safe parks?
• How will the new proposed way finding affect existing way finding?

Images of current wayfinding systems in MK

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The signage that exists currently is very basic – there is no creativity

Outcome

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