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As part of our initial brainstorming and mind mapping team exercises, we came up with a number of themes and questions that we wanted to explore further. Instead of doing everything as a team, we also wanted to go away as individuals, take photos, find interesting images, videos and pieces of research online and explore the city on our own for inspiration. I chose to go for a walk in my local neighbourhood in Blackheath.
Although Blackheath is in zone 3 of London and not considered the suburbs, it is a very leafy part of London. I visited the heath and some of the local parks which are also nature reserves.
My own home is in a development where nature and biodiversity has been carefully considered. I took a number of photos, which to me showed a different but important side of the city where so many of us live, work and play. It made me ask the question: when we think of the city - do we think of places like this?
Nature, Sustainability and the Smart City
Nature, Sustainability and the Smart City
Taking these photos made me wonder if the smart city is in conflict with nature and sustainability. In my mind it shouldn't be, so I wanted to develop this idea further. I wasn't interested in just how the city was designed for humans but also for the thousands of other species that live in our city today. I asked the question: how can we include homes for bees, bats, insects and other creatures in our design?
When feeding back to the team, they were also keen on the idea and so we looked into how to incorporate sustainability into the smart city and what developments were already taking place in this space.
After reading articles, finding interesting videos and facts online, we felt inspired by what we found and the direction we were taking. We also thought that taking a sustainable approach to the smart city was: more people-centric and had the potential to empower people in the fight against climate change all while having the potential to make our cities more livable in the future.
Looking for inspiration online from articles, reports and videos.
From People-Centric to Bee-Centric
From People-Centric to Bee-Centric
I was keen explore how to design for non-humans. I decided to focus on one species: bees.
Why bees? I was inspired by the photographs that I took of my local bee sanctuaries. I also enjoy gardening, so am aware of flowers that will attract bees and the importance of native planting so that bees can find flowers that they are familiar with. Another reason was my concern for the loss of bees and the tragic consequences that this would have on biodiversity since bees are responsible for 80% of all pollination. It is vital for humans to be bee centric.
I decided to explore the world of bees by finding out as much as I could about them. Due to social isolation I had to cancel a trip to a local honey farm for a 'Beekeeping Experience' to learn about bees and interact with a hive first hand, so I resorted to reading and watching videos instead. Here's just a few of the ones I watched.
Creating my Own Video
Creating my Own Video
I was inspired to create my own video on the subject of: What can bees teach us about smart cities? I thought there was enough footage online for me to use to produce my own video and that I could supplement videos with some photos. This meant that I could get up close to bees in a way that would be difficult to do on my own, given bees are so small and fast moving!
I started out by outlining a beginning, middle and end for the story of my video and the questions I wanted to the video to pose or if possible answer.
Beginning - How do bees see the city?
Middle - What do bees teach us about: urban living, cooperation, efficiency?
End - How would bees design a smart city?
I then developed the storyboard for my video, sketching out how the video would unfold, shot by shot. At this point I was focusing on ideally what I wanted to feature the video rather than whether I would be able to acquire the footage. I didn't want to be held back by that.
The storyboard helped me to visualise the shots I would need, the order in which they would appear and how the visuals would interact with the script. Here's my pencil sketch.
I then went on to search online for the footage. Where I couldn't find what I was looking for, I substituted video for stills. It was difficult to download footage in a format that could be used for iMovie. I received a lot of virus warnings for free programs offering to do this, so instead I decided to be creative and play the videos and screen record them using Quicktime and doing a voice over. It meant the end video was not quite to the professional standard but I was happy with what was my first attempt at producing a video!
Putting together the different bits of footage and images in iMovie was comparatively easy. The end video was a bit rough around the edges, but it worked. I uploaded it to YouTube.
Reflecting on Video Production
Reflecting on Video Production
Creating my first ever video taught me many things. One of them was definitely patience. Searching for an acquiring footage was a lot harder than I thought it would be, even if I could do it sat on my sofa. I was determined to stick to my storyboard and not change it just because the footage was hard to find. In some cases I found something that worked better than what I had in my sketch, in other cases I used stills instead of video which also worked fine.
I realised how up close and personal some of the videos were. I would not have been able to observe bees in this way by visiting a honey farm, so watching videos was much better and constructing my own video and made me think deeply bees and the world as they might see it. I'm sure I would not have had the same outcome if I simply read articles and books about bees either.
We often see video as a medium for entertainment. In fact when the Open University started producing television programmes as part of their university courses they we're derided. "You can't learn by watching TV" was the mantra. Perhaps some of that has stuck as I almost felt guilty watching so many YouTube videos in search for inspiration, to learn and to use as footage. I don't feel like that now.
Powerful as we humans are compared to other species on the planet, this experience taught me that there is a lot we can learn from bees. They are highly organised, cooperative, efficient and 'do' sustainability much better than we do. They're also thriving in cities, which is essentially what we want to get out of the smart city for ourselves. Bee-centered design is not easy, we don't know if we have got the design right for them except for a few measures such as population numbers, health indicators for bees and the little understand we have about their behaviours. Vinciane Despret's book What Would Animals Say If We Asked the Right Questions? suggests we have a long way to go to understand animal behaviour and language, but we need to if we want to design for them.
However, my most important learning from creating my What can bees teach us about smart cities? video was not about whether we can be more bee-centered, it's whether we can break out of our human-centered bubble. That has to be the first step before we start designing the smart city for all living beings.
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