During the first half of the semester we narrowed our HCW statement to: HCW make groups at HP more aware of the community involvement that sustains HP? We plan to continue to narrow down the user and location as we move forward with our project. From this HCW we said that we wanted our design to be fun, interactive, attractive various ages, informative, durable, harmonious yet distinct in its space, and engaging.
During ideation we came up with a wide variety of ideas ranging from a complete remodeling of the park to simply putting signs are the park. After we discussed all of our ideas, we made an axis with feasibility on the vertical axis and our excitement on the horizontal axis.
We plotted different ideas and narrowed down to three areas to continue to explore: art installation, signs, and mascots.
All three of these ideas would be used to communicate the community involvement that is vital to sustainability that already exists, which is a main guiding insight that we received from HPC. These concepts are also meant to engage visitors in a fun way that will add to their recreational use of the park. After further discussion, we realized that the aspects of signs and art installations that we find most appealing can be
combined into a mascot. For this reason we have chosen to move forward with the creation of a mascot for the park. We hope to not simply design a character, but present a package of possible events, signs, and other promotional material for Hermann Park that features the mascot. With this idea we believe we can not only showcase the community involvement but also promote future community participation.
From MSR, our biggest piece of advice was to make the font on our presentation larger (you live and you learn). We also received a lot of positive feedback on our ideations, and particularly on the mascots. Studio members liked the idea of giving the park a face! From the feedback we also discussed what our parameters within the park would be. We are scheduled to meet with HCP to discuss our more specific ideas and how to move forward, so we can answer that question and continue designing within our constraints.
