Tag Archives: co-design

What’s in a name?

Parlours of Wonder

What’s in a name? Do the names we give to projects and collaborative initiatives matter? These may seem like banal or odd questions but they are proving to be important to consider when undertaking a co-designed collaborative project; as we have found out early on in the Parlours of Wonder co-design process.

 

For the last two weeks Bristol University researchers, digital design partners and residents, day centre users and care staff have been coming together for co-design meetings at 3 care settings across Bristol, South Gloucestershire and North Somerset.

 

We all met up to discuss the initial designs for a ‘Parlour of Wonder’ that were created from our initial co-design meetings before Christmas. The responses to the initial design ideas created by Stand + Stare clearly demonstrate that the name ‘Parlour of Wonder’ is not insignificant, rather, it is a name that is far from inconsequential.

 

When Stand + Stare showed assembled care staff, residents and day centre users the initial designs and asked for feedback it was clear that ‘Parlours of Wonder’ conjured something quite specific in each person’s mind and how diverse these expectations were!

 

As a research team we were interested in ‘re-imagining the parlour for the 21st century’ – taking the idea of a ‘cabinet of curiosity’ or ‘wonder room’ but making the design of  this a more inclusive process.  However, for our partners,  the project title ‘Parlours of Wonder’ conjures up domestic spaces circa the 1940s, for others, an image of cabaret and feather boas, whilst for some it’s a playful space crammed full of colourful stuff.  We found  no one was associating the project with a “modern” space.

 

When we introduced our initial ideas one member of the care staff team asked: “This cabinet is a modern style, but presumably you could make it look older?” This question and others like it from other care staff was very revealing about individual expectations that arise from the ‘Parlour of Wonder’ as a project title and concept.

 

So whilst those managers who are setting aside a room within their care setting and those gathered who use the care settings’ services seem to associate ‘Parlours of Wonder’ with something ‘old’, for ourselves and our design partners, these Parlour of Wonder spaces are not necessarily so, for both practical reasons (to accommodate the storage and use of ipads with the Story Creator app) but also related to  ideas of disruptive design, where we see benefit in thinking differently about what care home spaces might look like, feel like and what they might contain within them.

These initial experiences, then, have led us all to wondering whether the name of the project is misleading and has led to expectations the design team feel they cannot fulfil. With this in mind we are all keen to see what evolves from the latest round of co-design meetings with regards to the Parlour of Wonder design itself, but also, were we to change the name of the project, what would be most suitable? …Watch this space!

Below are photos from two of our co-design meetings where the designers, Stand + Stare, are sharing their designs with residents and care staff. The colour red was a popular choice chosen from the Valchromat samples supplied by the designers, who are considering this material in order to make the cabinets to go into each Parlour of Wonder.

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The Parlours of Wonder co-design process has begun!

Parlours of Wonder

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Since the project began in November 2016 we have been busy with team meetings at the three partner care settings located in Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucester. The aim of these meetings has been to bring together the diverse project partners: designers (Lucy and Barney Heywood), ourselves (academics at the University of Bristol), the care setting manager(s), staff, volunteers and last, but by far from least, the residents or day care visitors themselves, in order to discuss the space within each care setting most appropriate for a Parlour of Wonder.

In our informal meetings we have been keen to hear what the residents and/or day care visitors would like to see in a Parlour of Wonder and what they think one should be. Subsequently, we have been asking them many questions – some could say, too many!

This project values and prioritises the processes of co-design and co-production, meaning, quite simply, we are keen for those who are going to be the users and keepers of a Parlour of Wonder to be deeply involved in the design and production process from the start. We certainly don’t want designers and researchers coming into each care setting imposing what they think those in each care setting would like a Parlour of Wonder to be and look like! However, whilst, our co-design and co-production principles are well meant, in reality, they remain very challenging to implement and maintain (but more on this at a later date).

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Barney is measuring the dimensions of the room identified for a Parlour of Wonder at a care setting in Bristol. He was grateful for a resident’s assistance in this process, whilst Lucy continued asking other residents for their ideas on how the room should be transformed into a Parlour.

So far, much of this co-design process has involved talking with residents in small groups in each care setting and asking them probing questions such as: If you had a room designed for relaxing with visitors what would it look like? What furniture would it contain? What would the walls look like? What furniture is comfortable for you? These questions will help the designers to come up with some mock-up designs that we will then take back to each care setting and ask the staff and residents/day care visitors to comment on. We are aiming to hold these meetings in late January 2017 and we’re all excited about what the designers mock-ups for a Parlour of Wonder might look like…so watch this space!

…Meanwhile, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Co-design and cake at the Bristol Oncology Centre

Nature, Technology and Well-Being, News, Objects of Escape, Projects

Today we facilitated a session called ‘Co-design and cake’ on the Teenage and Young Adult ward at the Bristol Oncology Centre.

With the support of the Teenage Cancer Trust’s Well-being Co-ordinator and Youth Support Co-ordinator, we gathered together as a group of patients, relatives and friends, in the bright environment of the ward’s Chat Room to enjoy afternoon tea. This was a chance for me to introduce myself and the project, and find out what the participants might think would benefit them during their hospital treatment, and what they would like to try out over the course of this pilot.

Nature is already well represented on the ward, and patients are provided with options for a range of activities when they’re feeling well enough. The Chat Room, where we were meeting, is a large, open plan communal space, with a kitchen area, table football, sofas, board games, pool table and a jukebox:

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The Chat Room, Teenage and Young Adult cancer ward, Bristol Oncology Centre
ALL PHOTOGRAPHS COPYRIGHT OLIVER EDWARDS 2014 OLIVEREDWARDS.CO.UK MAIL@OLIVEREDWARDSPHOTOGRAPHY.COM +44 (0) 7598315331
The Chat Room, Teenage and Young Adult cancer ward, Bristol Oncology Centre

As shown in the photo above, along the main wall of The Chat Room there is a beautiful woodland frieze. These outdoor scenes also create a peaceful backdrop to the reception area, the seclusion of The Snug (for reading and quiet solitude), and the Games Room (complete with Smart TV, Xbox consoles, and a film library of DVDs):

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Reception area, Teenage and Young Adult cancer ward, Bristol Oncology Centre
The quiet space of The Snug, Teenage and Young Adult cancer ward, Bristol Oncology Centre
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Games Room, Teenage and Young Adult cancer ward, Bristol Oncology Centre

Elsewhere on the ward, there is a well-being room with mood lighting and a therapies couch for reflexology. The ward staff had previously highlighted to our project team, the well-being needs of visiting families and supporters, alongside the needs of patients themselves. Staff had talked about ‘occupational loss’ – referring to how parents, relatives and supporters would normally be spending their time, if they weren’t at the hospital. This occupational loss could quite literally be a loss of work, but also missed time with other children and family members, or the loss of holidays and so forth.

So the key research questions from staff on the TYA ward for our exploratory pilot study include these points:

  • Will the outcome be something that supporters could use, as well as patients? (For example, a recent reflexology trial, set up by the Teenage Cancer Trust, was found to benefit carers and family members almost more than the patients).
  • Can the project outcomes improve people’s experience during treatment?

The Well-being Co-ordinator recognised that it is difficult for patients to spend time out of their bedrooms for lots of reasons, but she felt there was a need to offer patients something else to do, other than to sit (or lie down) in the seclusion of their bedrooms, and in addition to the variety of activities already available. With this in mind, we decided that portability was an essential feature for any prototypes, alongside careful consideration and medical guidance regarding infection control.

Back with the group of patients and their supporters in The Chat Room, I introduced a series of questions to initiate our discussions around nature and technology, assisted by a collection of natural objects and materials, and a large selection of nature-themed images to serve as conversational prompts. Here is just a small selection of the objects and images shared today:
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Interestingly, almost as soon as the group began to talk about nature, they also started referring to the smells, sounds and other sensory aspects of being outdoors. Nearly all of the participants said that they experience nature most frequently through some kind of activity, such as walking, swimming, kayaking, sailing or sightseeing.

When asked the question, ‘Which natural world environment would you transport yourself to, if you could go anywhere?’ these were some of the group’s responses:

  • Desert – for the warmth (feeling relaxed in the heat)
  • Beach – going swimming, walking barefoot on the sand and paddling in the shallows (which was forbidden during treatment for one of the patients)
  • Woods – ideally a combination of forests, hills, meadows and freshwater lakes
  • Waterfalls and running rivers – a Canadian mountain landscape
  • Norway – snow, water, fjords, green landscape, peaceful, spellbinding environments with a chance to see the Northern Lights

With such a variety of choices for contrasting terrain, one of the patient’s fathers suggested that whatever nature and technology experiences we offer, these must be bespoke and personalised, as people’s opinions and preferences are always so individual.

The concept of nature as a means of ‘getting away from it all’ and as a form of escapism appealed to the whole group. One patient described how ‘the one thing you want when you are stressed and intimidated by all the hospital treatments and procedures, is to take your mind away from the present, so the escapism of Virtual Reality sounds very appealing’.

In discussing potential technologies, everyone in the group had said they were excited about the idea of experiencing Virtual Reality, while no one had yet had the chance to try it before…

So compelled by this really useful session, we look forward to returning to the ward in a couple of weeks time, when we will be able to offer the participants some immersive digital experiences of nature, and find out what they think of VR – in reality!

Research begins at the BBC Natural History Unit

Nature, Technology and Well-Being, News, Objects of Escape, Projects

As this pilot research phase begins, we will be building on some of the therapeutic prototypes that we developed under the AHRC-funded Tangible Memories project, and are looking forward to exploring ways of ‘bringing the outside in’ for people who have limited access to nature for protracted periods of time.

For some of the groups we will be working with, this lack of opportunity to experience the natural environment or simply go outside, will be a symptom of low immunity during cancer treatment and long-term hospital stays, with patients sometimes needing to remain in isolation for six weeks at a time.

For others, an age-related deterioration in mobility and cognition, and the disorientating effects of advanced dementia will restrict experiences of the natural world.

Nature is widely acknowledged to have restorative and therapeutic effects, so how then might it be incorporated into these healthcare settings to benefit and improve well-being, for those who can’t physically access or enjoy the reality of it?

This is just one of the many questions that our multi-disciplinary team will be researching over the next six months, as we collaborate with the Teenage and Young Adult ward at the Bristol Oncology Centre, the Teenage Cancer Trust and a Brunelcare home for older people in east Bristol.

We will be exploring the potential of virtual reality for the teenage and young adult cancer patients at the Oncology Centre, offering 360°immersive experiences of nature through specially produced film and sound content.

At the residential care home, we will mainly develop the use of the Soundscape rocking chair, which can transport the individual to a natural environment by evoking the imagination, using atmospheric sounds and audio. The rocking motion of the chair triggers sound recordings from nature, such as the dawn chorus, waves on the seashore, or walking on snow, and plays these soundtracks through stereo speakers embedded in the chair’s headrest. Other nature-themed content which the rocking chair plays at random, includes poetry like Wordworth’s Daffodils, and classical music such as The Lark Ascending by Vaughan Williams.

In both settings, we will experiment with natural materials and digital technologies to develop multi-sensory sound-emitting objects.

So where better to find nature in all its multifarious forms, other than outdoors? Surely very few representations of nature can surpass the sound, film and image archives of one of our project partners, in the BBC Natural History Unit. As a starting point for our research, I had the great pleasure of exploring some of these awe-inspiring collections, and meeting some of the archive and digital production teams for the first time, to progress some ideas about how best to begin.

I was given an exhilarating taster of some of the virtual reality films available, using both the HTC Vive headset and the more portable Samsung Gear VR. With the help of some sophisticated 360°film-making, I took a virtual trip to the Kashmiri mountains and enjoyed an underwater dive off the coast of Costa Rica. Here’s me getting very involved in one of these immersive experiences!

Artist Heidi Hinder immersing herself in a virtual reality experience
Artist Heidi Hinder immersing herself in a virtual reality experience

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Afterwards I was introduced to the BBC’s digital sound library, and was struck by the sheer volume and diversity of these audio archives. In this extensive and absorbing sound store, any generic searches quickly proved pointless. For example, I needed to specify whether the sound of a storm that I was looking for, was specifically a sandstorm, snowstorm, thunderstorm, tropical storm, monsoon, hurricane or other kind of environmental maelstrom. Type ‘dawn chorus’ into the online search box, and initially, most people would expect birdsong. But dawn chorus in the rainforest includes gibbons, frogs, insects and the sound of dripping water. Dawn chorus on Talan Island however, on the Sea of Okhotsk in Russia, sounded a deafening mass colony of crested auklets.

As well as the atmospheric audio, the brief descriptions of these sound recordings conjured up equally vivid scenes:

‘Whistling wind in the harbour, with some rattling of ships rigging’
‘Large flock of Greater Snow Geese flying overhead on the Delmarva Peninsula, Virginia’ .

These poetic snippets and their accompanying sound files gave me ideas about curating an aural story or journey for the rocking chair.

But what about unsettling and disturbing nature sounds? What about ‘European Wolves howling, ravens picking at carcass; growling, snarling, chewing and crunching bones’? Or presumably, the irritation caused by listening to a ‘High pitched whine from a swarm of brine flies’?

The BBC Archives Manager and I had an interesting conversation about our objectives for the project. In a healthcare setting, where we are seeking to improve patients’ and residents’ sense of well-being, should we only include nature content that would be considered relaxing and therapeutic? Inevitably, what is defined as relaxing and therapeutic, is also highly subjective, even cultural.

Thanks to the benefits of working in collaboration, we will be better able to address some of these questions once we start working alongside the staff and young people at the Oncology Centre, and the carers and older people at Deerhurst, in order to co-design some prototypes and experiences that they want to use and enjoy.