Studio Spring 2023
How might we establish an environment of collaboration for Water Cooler tenants within Pegasus Park?
In the spring of 2023, Water Cooler at Pegasus Park challenged MADI students to answer the question: “How might we establish an environment of collaboration for Water Cooler tenants within Pegasus Park?” Approaching this problem from a Human-Centered Design (HCD) perspective, three design teams engaged in an intensive sixteen-week process of both secondary research and fieldwork to gain a thorough understanding of all the actors, factors, and issues involved in this challenge. At the conclusion of the semester, the teams delivered their findings and recommendations to the client and discussed how each effort can continue to live on in the future.
View the final Client Presentation on the SMU MADI Youtube page.
Each team pursued research around their respective lens as well as around workplace collaboration, social sector real estate development, and themes such as awareness, hospitality, and trust. They each carried their research through prototype concepts that tested their design ideas in real-world scenarios. At the end of the semester, each team reported how their active research and prototypes specifically addressed the unique needs of the Water Cooler tenants and community members.
TEAM ONE: ASTRONAUTS (SPACE)
Tanner Williams I Gina Wang I Stuart Cornett I Aline Zuniga
TEAM TWO: HIPPOCRENE DESIGN (SERVICE)
Chloe Lee I Martha Fernandez I Harrison Tassopoulos I Kenedy Kundysek
TEAM THREE: COOLER CONNECTIONS (PROGRAM)
Carlos Flores-Rodríguez I Steve Kinder I Nick Ortega I Dubzeey Wu
PROJECT CONTEXT
To kick off the project, the three teams met with Leighton Watts, Director of the Water Cooler, and Margaret Black, Managing Director of Lyda Hill Philanthropies, to learn more about their understanding of the research question. They also explored specific metrics for a successful engagement and additional context about the Pegasus Park office park and the Water Cooler community of non-profit and social impact organizations. During the briefing, the teams learned that Water Cooler tenants had worked in the space for less than a year, and many organizations were still navigating how hybrid and remote work was impacting their teams and individual employees. In fact, this was a new office space for all the organizations. All of the new tenants were individually excited about the office at Pegasus Park, but an understanding of how this new workplace environment would drive collaboration across the community had yet to be fully defined.
PROTOTYPE ONE: THE INKWELL SHARING LIBRARY (SPACE)
Team Astronauts had a future-focused constraint given by the client when it came to exploring the theme of space: no built walls within the Water Cooler office floors could be moved or torn down. Therefore, the team focused their work around existing shared spaces throughout the offices such as the break room, printer room, foyers, and hallways, specifically on the 7th floor which contains more open-concept workstations.
Given this context around space, the team developed a framework to focus their ideation around the concepts of awareness, inspiration, and connection. The team defined awareness as the passive moments of experiencing a space that creates sparks of engagement and connection as the active moments of experiencing a space that intends to force a connection between tenants. Along this spectrum lies inspiration.
Ultimately, the team questioned how the Water Cooler might utilize existing shared space to drive awareness to inspire future collaboration between tenants.
Through their primary research, the team observed what spaces were being used and how they were being used, identified the highest-traffic areas, and worked to understand how far people might be willing to travel from their work areas to spend time in their preferred community spaces. Generally, the team found that participants were delighted by space amenities that enhance their current experience such as whiteboards, coffee stations, and stocked break rooms, but are burdened by experiences that break their flow of work. Examples are locked rooms, inaccessible meeting rooms, and collaboration areas that are far away. Based on these learnings, the team took inspiration from libraries as places that utilize space interactively to build community and promote a culture of collaboration through shared values. For their prototype, the team designed and built a community library called The Inkwell.
CONCLUSION AND DESIGN PRINCIPLES
- Learning-Focused: Knowledge sharing should be part of designing a space. People are willing to share knowledge and they have a desire to learn.
- Make it Easy: Take advantage of places where people are already going. People will stay in their own spaces and routines as long as they are on the path of least resistance
- Community Driven: Spaces should be designed with community input. The people who inhabit the space should feel like they are responsible for how it is designed.
- Open Access: Public spaces are optimized by being accessible, and even minor obstructions can discourage the community’s use of space.
PROTOTYPE TWO: LINKEDIN DIGITAL COMMUNITY (SERVICE)
Hippocrene Design was specifically interested in the ongoing relationship between Water Cooler management and tenants.
Based on their research, the team defined a service as something delivered to a recipient by a provider through a specific structure. In the context of social sector real estate projects, these services are often shared or gifted by a curatorial organization or landlord. The team also identified components of people, hospitality, and technology as being important to how, where, and when services are delivered.
While through their research the team was able to identify a desire for a digital community to help connect Water Cooler tenants, the initial challenge in testing a digital prototype was understanding adoption and selecting a low-fidelity testing platform.
The Water Cooler Community LinkedIn Group provided a digital context to test content sharing, increase access to information, and facilitate connections. The team invited people to join the LinkedIn Group, and designed, curated, and posted content. People responded to the prototype by liking and commenting on posts and even posting content of their own.
Finally, the team was curious to understand more about how a digital community might encourage in-person behaviors. To test this, the team hosted a Coffee Meet Up that was planned and promoted exclusively through the Water Cooler Community LinkedIn Group. Although nobody attended the meet-up, the team reflected that there were still factors to test such as the day of the week, time or day, and future programming expectations. The team concluded that a digital community alone will not facilitate relationship-building.
CONCLUSION AND DESIGN PRINCIPLES
- Invest in a Digital Community: Investing in a digital community would provide Water Cooler organizations and community members with increased access to needed information to build new relationships together.
- Leverage Digital to Complement In-Person: Leveraging digital to complement in-person programs and spaces would add to a holistic experience and set clear structures for community participation.
- Provide a Consistency of Hospitality: Providing consistency of hospitality over time will deepen trust between management and community members and increase the adoption of services.
PROTOTYPE THREE: CONNECTION COMMITTEE (PROGRAM)
In order to frame their work, the team defined programming as a system that builds an offering of virtual and in-person events intended to foster engagement and collaboration in the Water Cooler community. Through their secondary research, the team also identified themes that were pertinent to the context of collaboration and the non-profit sector.
- Non-profits focused on similar sectors can leverage resources more effectively.
- Top-down approaches often fail to capitalize on informal, locally-organized initiatives.
- A hallmark of effective collaboration is that everyone has a “voice” in decisions.
- In order to be most efective, there is need for collective ownership of goals.
In the research phase, the team specficially focused on the themes of trust, awareness, and rhythm. These key themes were important to both establishing an environment of collaboration and also anticipating how programs could be delivered to the Water Cooler community in the future. To explore these themes, the team prototyped a Connection Committee, a volunteer-led group tasked with planning future programs at the Water Cooler. The prototype included three main elements: committee selection, a promotional info session, and the committee launch meeting. Through the Connection Committee, the team hoped to encourage social interaction between members, generate ideas for future events, and create an action plan for next steps. Working with Water Cooler management, the team identified a select group of community members from a diverse set of organizations.
The team hosted a virtual info session to engage with interested members.
The culminating element of the prototype was the Committee Launch Meeting. The meeting lasted 2 Hours, had 9 attendees who participated in 3 brainstorming exercises, and concluded with the scheduling of 2 future committee events.
- Establish Awareness: By elevating the profile of Water Cooler programs through the Connection Committee, the group can discuss issues being experienced by other community members and be a bridge to Water Cooler management. Additionally, the Connection Committee can help establish a consistent cadence around the promotion of scheduled events.
- Find an Easy Rhythm: The committee requires volunteer engagement and initiative. The participants need to take ownership over their own planning calendar as well as leveraging their existing individual strengths for the benefit of the committee. By finding both an internal rhythm to work and an external rhythm for delivering programs to the broader community, the committee can build success over time.