Melaney_Gorman_Week5
Better late than never?
So as I’m working through the process of developing a mental map, I’m going through my moleskin- looking at where we’ve been, who we’ve talked to and started to think: who wants what? It’s a simple question- one that I think has been in the back of my mind since the beginning of the semester- but I until today I haven’t taken the time to sit down and write out the answer for each and every actor.
In the order of when we met them, this is the list of actors that I believe to be directly related to the design:
1) Coleman, 2) Kristine 3) Kaetah, 4) Each other, 5) Lindsey, 6) Edwin, 7) Skip, 8) Refugees at River Farm (Chandra + ?), 9) Watershed Protection, 10) Refugees at Festival Beach (Aldophine), 11) Erin 12) Interviewed Refugees at Lanier, 13) Interviewed Refugees at Festival Beach
So there are quite a few players in the mix. I think sitting down to admit that each player wants a different something out of the design is an essential step in answering the age old question: WHO IS OUR PRIMARY CLIENT? Well, after doing this exercise, I’m still not sure what the answer is, but I think that I have started to notice that different actors in our network have different amounts of agency in two different stages of our project. The two stages being 1) The development of the project (design and build), and 2) The maintenance of the end result. For example, Skip and Erin have a certain agency in the development of our built prototype because they are providing us with necessary items to build with and by providing us with land to build on. Once the prototype is built, however, their agency is reduced and (more or less) transferred to the MRC participants that are required to maintain the structure. Skip and Erin are necessary for providing the capital that helps the project get off the ground, but at the end of the day I think it is important to realize that the long-term fate of our design is not in their hands.
This relationship reminds me of what we discussed about the Hayden reading. She gives the example of the Puerto Rican casitas as a way that the end user has adapted or changed their environment so that it better suits their needs (Certeau-???). In the case of the casitas, the designer of the housing units that surround them clearly did not appropriate the necessary amount of participation in order to provide a desirable living space, so the users took the situation into their own hands in order to make the space more desirable.
Maybe if we give a bit more agency to the actors that will end up with the most agency in the end, we will succeed in providing a solution that is long-lasting and sustainable. For example, in the situation mentioned above, though Skip and Erin are providing the capital (which gives them a certain amount of agency) perhaps it would be wise to re-appropriate some of that initial agency to the MRC refugees in the development phase of the project. I feel that because the MRC refugees do not have a monetary investment in the project that they might be at a disadvantage in the initial development phase of the project. It is then our responsibility as “public interest designers” to make sure that they have an equal opportunity to give their input and to also make sure that their input is appropriately considered in the design of the project so that we reach an EQUITABLE outcome (hey Barbara).










